


Fire on Fire

by sifshadowheart



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: A/U Coulson Family History/Background, A/U Stilinski Family History/Background, Alternate Universe, Amoral Stiles Stilinski, And not the sort that lands him in Eichen House, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Everyone Needs Therapy, Genius Stiles Stilinski, Grey Stiles Stilinski, His Kid needs Help, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Intersex Jotunn (Marvel), Kitsune Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mpreg, Multi, Phil Coulson is Stiles Stilinski's Uncle, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Powerful Stiles Stilinski, Scarred Stiles, Slash, Stiles Stilinski Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stiles Stilinski Leaves Beacon Hills, Stiles and Steve Helping Each Other Cope/Adapt, Stiles's Dad is Done with This Shit, Stilinski Family Feels, Tattooed Stiles Stilinski, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-01-31 09:15:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 50,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18588250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifshadowheart/pseuds/sifshadowheart
Summary: Peter has always liked Stiles.  From his snarky mouth to his clever mind to his willingness to do anything - anything at all - to protect what Stiles considered his.  Which was why, when everyone else was running around doubting that he was the Nogitsune, Peter was doing his homework.Little did he know, Stiles was doing his as well.A Stiles-leaves/is sent away a/u from S3E22 wherein the Sheriff only wants what is best for his kid, Phil Coulson is an uncle, and Stiles is more prepared and less naive than anyone ever gave him credit for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note:  
> Consider this canon up until the events of season 3, episode 22 of Teen Wolf where we will divert rather sharply from events as of the moment Scott digs his claws into the back of Stiles’s neck. I have a niggling plot bunny regarding the nogitsune and Stiles and how that all could have gone down and how Papa Stilinski deals with things in the aftermath of season 3 events.
> 
> That said, I am aware that there are a handful of decent to excellent fics with Stiles as either Coulson or Fury’s nephew or godson and that idea isn’t original but I’m going to spin this my way.
> 
> I also know that Avengers: Assemble was released in 2012 with the events thereof theoretically taking place in that same time period but I’m going to push things back a year to the summer of 2013 to give some breathing room between Stiles coming under the care of his uncle and having time to recover and then facing a new set of crises.
> 
> Now if everyone follows that, let’s get this party started!

** Fire on Fire **

**A Teen Wolf/Avengers Crossover**

**_By Sif Shadowheart_ **

Disclaimer:  Teen Wolf and its characters are the property of MTV, while the Marvelverse and associated characters are the property of Fox and Marvel studios…I think.  Please enjoy this work of fan-authored fiction.

**WARNING!  This fic contains the following themes/tropes/alterations:**

**Pre-slash, slash, and mpreg.**

**Chapter One:**

**Devoid**

Peter Hale paced in circles around the McCall living room, entertained down to his bones over events leading him – them all – to this moment.

He’d always liked Stiles.

It took balls of solid brass to stare into the face of an insane – and say what you liked about him, Peter had never been one for self-delusion – vengeance-obsessed Alpha werewolf and sass and snark and refuse the Bite.

Couple that with Stiles being the only form of well-rounded intelligence in the strange island of misfit toys that the _most disappointing Bitten ever_ “true alpha” or not put together and Peter genuinely liked the snarky little bastard with a violent streak a mile wide and an inferiority complex around the super-powered beings he’d become surrounded with not far behind it.

Stiles was interesting.

Bold red in a world of bland beige and boring.

Still, even Peter could admit that his nephew hadn’t been _wrong_ – per se – to doubt that Stiles was the Nogitsune, or rather its host.

When anyone from Derek to Kate Argent to Gerard to anyone else who looked at the McCall pack, even before it _became_ the McCall Pack, there were much more obvious choices for the power to cause damage than Stiles with his pale skin and sarcasm.

Peter had never been one to take things at face value.

There was a reason that he’d offered Stiles the Bite and allowed him to decline.

If there was anyone remaining in this godforsaken town _worthy_ of the gift of the Bite, someone who would make a marvelous wolf, it was unassuming Stiles Stilinski with his cunning mind, insatiable thirst for knowledge, and drive to protect what was his.

Add in that Spark that anyone with any _real_ knowledge of the supernatural could see if they were looking and well…

Peter wasn’t surprised in the least that Stiles ended up being the host all along _or_ that he’d managed to fight it and limit the damage the Nogitsune was capable of meting out for a solid six months before the events of the last few weeks.

Really, until the Oni came calling and gave the Nogitsune a reason to fight Stiles harder than it had ever done before.

And even that was a credit to the skinny teen that everyone always overlooked when it came to threat assessment.

The Nogitsune cared as much about fucking with Stiles and keeping him off-balance, weakening him, as it did all the rest of the pack combined and if _that_ wasn’t a compliment to how dangerous the snarky little shit was, Peter didn’t know what would be.

One thing was for certain however as Peter took in the wounded form on the McCall couch being kept paralyzed by kanima venom and silent via duct-tape: the Nogitsune wasn’t taking good care of its host.

A heartening sign, even if the others were too big of dolts to realize it.

If it had to run down its host, keep Stiles from resting and eating or injured, then he was still strong, still capable of fighting.

They just had to make _Stiles_ see that too.

Which, really, was where the pack had finally made a smart decision for once in calling Peter.

Because if there was anything he knew how to do it was manipulate a situation to his advantage.

“He doesn’t look like he’d survive a slap across the face, let alone a werewolf bite.”  Peter commented as he bent over to get a better look at those normally bright amber eyes that were dark and dim under the control of the fox demon.

“You don’t think it would work?”  Scott asked, willing to play nice with the psychopath if it meant saving his best friend.

“This is more a war of the mind than the body.”  Peter said, still searching for any hint of Stiles in the creature driving his body around like a rental car it had every intention of totaling.  He straightened up, decision made.  “There are better methods for winning this battle.”

“What kind of methods?”  Alan Deaton, vet, druid, emissary, asked one of the most dangerous wolves he ever had the misfortune to know.  Peter had always been dangerous, even before the fire.  Afterwards…well.  He was just content that for the moment Peter was willing to play nice.  It was when that period of armistice lapsed that he was worried for.

Peter smirked right down into those might-as-well-be-dead brown eyes, taking hold of Scott’s wrist and flicking his hand, unleashing the Alpha’s claws.

“We’re going to get into his head.”

Ah, finally, a reaction.

Peter held in a victorious grin as the creature wearing Stiles’s face lifted his brows in interest, eyes flashing for a split-second.

“Do you have a plan beyond messing around in an already traumatized and warring mind?”  Alan asked drily, eyeing Peter with unabated suspicion as the werewolf circled around to the back of the McCall couch after they re-dosed the Nogitsune with kanima venom to keep him paralyzed.

“We’re going to go digging through pale and sickly Evil-Stiles, here,” Peter looked down at the slim form on the couch.  “To unearth pale and sickly Real-Stiles then coax him back from the depths of his own subconscious.”

He sighed at the blank faces he was treated to at that save for those of Alan and lovely Ms. Martin, gesturing them out of the room along with Scott and leaving the malevolent kitsune to be watched over by Melissa and out of hearing range for anything supernatural – including a fox spirit.

“But, you can’t do it alone.”  He allowed, eyeing his disappointing beta as they reconvened in the garage, which was really all Scott would _ever_ be to him, vaunted “true alpha” or not.

“What do you mean?”  Scott frowned, clearly confused.

“Somebody who actually knows a thing or two about the mind and mental battles is going to have to go in with you.”  Peter told him honestly.  “Normally I would suggest Ms. Martin but,” he took the formed-wax earplugs that worked the best at protecting a wolf’s hearing from things like gunfire – or the shriek of a Banshee, from one of the cargo pockets of his tactical pants.  “If this is going to work we’ll need her on the outside to scream for Stiles.”

“Scream for _Stiles_?”  Lydia’s eyes shot wide.  This was _not_ what they’d agreed on when she’d bargained with Peter for his help.

“Not like that.”  Peter rolled his eyes.  Always with the distrust these people.  Go on _one_ little – deserved – murder spree and it’s always with the skepticism.  That was the problem with working with white hats and their moralistic judgements.  Damn, he can’t wait for Stiles to come back.  _Real_ Stiles, anyway.  “If the goal is to split Stiles and the Nogitsune so the Nogitsune can be killed _without_ damaging Stiles any further then there is going to be a catalyst needed.  A trigger.”

“A scream.”  Lydia nodded reluctantly.  “We’ve given the Nogitsune a reason to _want_ to leave, now it just needs a bit of impetus.”

“The problem is,” Peter continued with a nod for the red-head.  “That from what I understand of the scrolls and Nogitsune lore, they’ll look identical.  _We_ won’t know which is the right Stiles and which is his evil twin.”  The possible outcomes of a battle between the two…well.  He’d keep that to himself.  Not his fault if they didn’t do the assigned reading on Nogitsune once they discovered what they had causing chaos on their hands.  “Stiles doesn’t just have to battle the Nogitsune in a battlefield under his own control once we remind him of that _but_ in the physical world as well.”

“What do you mean?”  Alan asked, perplexed.  “The scroll only spoke of changing the host to kill the Nogitsune.”

“And do we _really_ want to rely on intelligence hundreds of years old?”  Peter arched his brows condescendingly.  “ _Yes_ , that _might_ work.  Or it might not.  Maybe it only expels the Nogitsune from the host.  Maybe it doesn’t work at all.  But all the lore is clear in that there are only _two_ certain ways to kill a Nogitsune: a foxfire blade that we _don’t_ have and the Oni.  Of the two _uncertain_ methods are a battle between host and spirit or changing the host.  And at least the former is a confirmed method and not just guesswork.”

“Why are you pushing so hard for this?”  Scott asked with an unimpressed look on his crooked-jawed face.  “What’s in it for you?”

“Stiles is my favorite.”  Peter shrugged completely unrepentantly.  “I’d like to have him back in as good of condition as possible and he’d made it _quite_ clear over the last year that he doesn’t want the Bite.”

“What?”  Scott blinked.  “When has he ever said that?”

“To me.”  Peter smirked at the shocked look on the trio of goody-goody faces.  “When I offered.  I respected his declination then and I’ll respect it now.”

“What makes Stiles so different?”  Lydia’s scowl was one for the ages.  “You didn’t have that same respect for either of us.”

“Of course not.”  Peter snorted, jerking his chin at her then tilting his head towards his disappointing beta.  “You were a Banshee and vital to my plan to come back, and he was collateral damage to being out of my mind on Alpha power.  In my right mind I never would’ve gone for such a disappointing beta as _Scott_.  Stiles on the other hand possesses traits I happen to value.”

“Wow.”  Lydia blinked, mouth pursing.  “Just when I thought you couldn’t get _any_ creepier you prove me wrong.”

“Bickering aside.”  Alan steered them back onto course.  Though he wasn’t any more pleased at the former-alpha’s words than the two teens.  “Who do you suggest accompanies Scott if not Lydia?”

“I will.”  Peter sighed as if put upon.  “Since unless I’m mistaken I’m the only person any of you know that is both aware of the supernatural and familiar with battling mental issues.”

“Because you were _insane_.”  Lydia hissed, eyes narrowed before spinning and flouncing off in a snit.  Deal or no deal, Peter was as much of a bastard as ever.

“If you have any better or more experienced candidates in mind, Alan.”  Peter arched a smug brow.  “I’m _all_ ears.”

Alpha and Emissary exchanged conceding grimaces, Peter grinning smarmily and clapping his hands.

“Right.”  He faux-cheered.  “Let’s get this plan started shall we?”  He eyed the light outside.  “Sundown isn’t as far away as I’d like and having the Oni show up mid-mind-meld won’t be good for _anyone_ involved.”

…

Once more in the living room, Scott stood behind the couch directly between the paralyzed form of his possessed best-friend and where Peter would be sitting, a simple wooden ladder-back chair taken from the dining room placed in front of, as Peter put it, _pale-sickly-Evil-Stiles_ for Lydia to sit and wait for the urge to scream, which Peter assured would come.

And was one of the reasons that Peter was going inside Stiles’s head.

He was one of the only people in existence with any sort of bond to the banshee, no matter how much she hated him for it.

Other than maybe Stiles himself, Peter was the only person alive likely to manage to compel her to use her powers.

This time, thankfully for all involved, _without_ turning her into a horcrux and possessing her.

Peter placed Scott’s bared claws to the side of Evil-Stiles’s neck, then sat and did the same for his own.

“If this works,” Peter warned the others as Alan – on his advice – circled the couch and Lydia’s chair with mountain ash.  She would be able to leave the circle but the rest of them…not so much.  “Or even if it doesn’t.  We’re _all_ going to come out of it disoriented.  Whatever you do: _don’t_ break the circle or the Nogitsune is going to take off.”

The somehow-haughty-snarky expression on the Nogitsune’s face at that was nothing but confirmation that without the kanima venom holding him down a tactical retreat was _exactly_ what it had in mind.

And with or without Stiles working against the fox spirit at every turn, possessed or dispossessed, that was something they couldn’t afford.

With no more build up or warning, Scott plunged his claws into the spinal cords of both his best-friend and creepiest enemy, sending their vision sparking nothing but white for a long moment then clearing.

Blinking, Scott frowned in confusion at the feeling of restraints strapping him down to a cold table in a dingy, dimly lit brick room.

A groan caught his attention next, the alpha werewolf turning his head slowly to see the form of Peter strapped down to a metal exam table beside him – but only for a moment.

Not even a full minute passed before Peter’s eyes were snapping open and his arms were flexing and wrenching upwards, snapping the restraints like they were made of tinfoil instead of iron shackles, spinning to sit up and staring expectantly at Scott.

“C’mon almighty Alpha.”  Peter mocked him relentlessly, a superior smirk on his handsome face.  “Time might pass differently in the mind but we don’t have all day for you to remember your wolf-given strength.”

Growly lowly, Scott echoed Peter’s move, freeing himself and sitting up then asking: “Where are we?”

Looking around, Peter pursed his lips a moment before venturing a guess.

“Eichen House.”  He rolled his shoulders, hopping down from the exam table.  “Though whether our less-than-warm welcome was on the part of the Nogitsune or Stiles using that impressive mind and imagination to teach himself mental traps and guards is hard to say.”

Scott let that process a moment as he followed the older wolf over to a massive steel door inset in one wall.

“Stiles…”  He blinked, holding in a chuckle as it clicked.  “Taught himself Occlumency?”

Peter arched a brow, a hint of a grin on his own face, then nodded.

“We don’t call it that, but the _method of loci_ is an old discipline.”  He studied the locked door for a long moment.  “Far older than the Harry Potter books.  And we all know what Stiles is like when he gets an idea in his head.  With his IQ and research habits – one of the only people I’ve ever met able to parse _factual_ and useful information on werewolves from the internet of all places – I’d have been shocked if we didn’t run into mental defenses after everything he’s been through the last six months.”  Unleashing his claws, Peter shredded the lock on the door then pulled it open.  “Stiles’s mind has always been his greatest strength.  He just needs reminding of that.”  He tilted his head towards the pitch-black corridor revealed by the opened door.  “Shall we?”

Eyes lit Alpha-red to see in through the darkness of the construct, Scott nodded and followed the wolf who turned him into the dark.

Which was a mistake, as it turned out, as no sooner had he stepped into the corridor than it disappeared Peter along with it, and a dark portion of the preserve took its place filled with the sounds of a chilling howl that still haunted his nightmares: Alpha-Peter the night he was Bitten.

…

Peter had always liked Stiles.

Even when he was a hyperactive little kid that drove his niece nuts in her kindergarten class with too much energy, too much intelligence, and the attention span of a goldfish.

Scott and the others liked to act as if the Fire was an all-eclipsing moment.

Like nothing that came before would ever matter as much as all that came after.

Stiles knew better.

He was the one from all accounts who’d recognized Derek on sight as Derek _Hale_ not just some stranger lurking in the woods.

Information had always, even back when Stiles was a child running around the library under the amused eyes of his mother or the sheriff’s department under those of his father, been Stiles’s drug of choice.

A self-defense mechanism at its very finest in a place that wouldn’t – or simply couldn’t – feed the mind of someone with the intelligence of Stiles or Lydia, they’d both come up with their own methods to learn what they wanted to know and keep their minds occupied, not unlike Peter had done two decades before.

Small towns were marvelous places to raise children in many ways.

When it came to nurturing genius however, often both parents and educators alike were left scratching their heads.

What that meant now, for Peter trying to unlock Stiles’s active mind and free him from the control of the Nogitsune, was that while the trickster spirit might _think_ it had Stiles under wraps, he was willing to bet otherwise.

From everything Peter knew about the malevolent kitsune, they were called down – summoned – by those desiring to unleash chaos in one form or another on those around them.

To Peter, that meant that the Nogitsune had likely never met a mind like Stiles’s before.

After all, when one had a mind like Stiles’s or Peter’s, one didn’t _need help_ sowing chaos, discord, and pain if that was their desire.

They were more than capable of it all on their own.

Somewhere in his mind he was willing to bet – and bet quite a bit – that the real Stiles was waiting and watching everything while some shadow of himself kept the Nogitsune occupied, planning and scheming and using every bit of that need to _know_ to find a way out of the trap that Alan’s little symbolic sacrifice ritual and the darach’s drive for power and vengeance had left him entangled in.

Maybe, perhaps, even to set a trap or two of his own.

Peter just had to find Stiles before Scott managed to find the Nogitsune.

Which, considering the mental acumen of his disappointing beta, probably wouldn’t take much to manage.

Peter lowered himself into a lotus position on the tangible-intangible not-a-floor of Stiles’s current mental construct of Peter’s hospital room which told him more than anything that while the Nogitsune might _think_ it was in charge there was a definite tang of Stiles pulling strings in the background – the little bastard always _had_ known just where to twist the knife – and closed his eyes, concentrating on what he knew about Stiles.

About where Stiles would feel _safe_ and in control.

It certainly wasn’t in the halls of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital where some of his worst memories had been given life and heft and form.

No, not there.

Not the school where he’d seen so much bad happen and been abducted to appease a psychopath’s need to _hurt_.

Not the McCall house where Scott had almost killed him more than once.

Definitely not the sheriff’s department where he’d had to lay in paralyzed agony as he feared for his father’s life.

No…Peter smiled, eyes snapping open and turning towards the closed door of the hospital room.

There was just _one_ place where Stiles had always been safe.

A place where he had more control, more power, than anywhere else no matter what the good Sheriff liked to tell himself.

Reaching out, Peter lifted the handle on the door with a significant _click_ , focusing all the while on what he wanted to see on the other side.

After all, while Scott might be the one connecting them and Stiles who they wanted to find, at the moment all _three_ of them were linked – and that gave Peter just as much power to play with the constructs around him as anyone else.

As the door opened, revealing a room that wasn’t _quite_ what he’d been seeking but similar enough, a head with messy brown hair turned – just slightly – from watching the wall of a dozen screens that filled a space that in real life contained a bedroom wall with a window.

“Took you long enough.”  Stiles sassed the former-alpha lightly, looking over his shoulder at the smirking visage of Peter-fucking-Hale.  Because _of course_ , that was who managed to find him.  “I was starting to wonder if you were all talk after all, Big Bad.”

…

Stiles grinned, unrepentantly incandescently, _happy_ for a fraction of a second that seemed to last a lifetime and no time at all in the secure – once Peter closed the door behind him and it disappeared, leaving a seamless wall behind it as if it had never _been_ in the first place – core of his very _self_.

Finally, _finally_ things were moving in a direction that he could use.

It was about _damn time_ even if it took Zombiewolf’s help to manage it and you better _believe_ he’d be getting to the bottom of the agreement the epic creeper had made with Lydia when he finally woke up.

But first, some exposition just so he and Creeperwolf were on the same page.

“Ten months ago,” he began, sobering and turning back to the dozens of smaller screens that made up his wall-of-watching.  “Give or take, Deaton handed me a bag of mountain ash and told me to _believe_ that it would work to form a barrier impossible for the supernatural to cross.  Now, you can call me many things, but naïve has never been one of them.”  

No, his naivete had died on a hospital rooftop at ten years old listening to his mother insist that he was trying to kill her, thanks.

That was the sort of childhood trauma that left scars and altered you forever.

The sort of thing there really was no coming back from.

Even before he ended up being the only one in the room when she died and was forced to wait for his dad to show up for _hours_ in the cold and humorless waiting room of Beacon Hills Memorial Hospital.

“Afterwards he said I had a _spark_ and proceeded to brush off and dismiss the rest of my questions.”  Stiles continued, eyes flicking from one screen to another to another, all of them physical representations of information his brain was processing and sorting and storing, deleting useless and extraneous information like memories of each time he went to the bathroom – or similar memories from those he was connected to, the banks of monitors on the walls to his right and left that formed the interior curve of the sickle-shaped wall new additions thanks to Peter’s little trick with Scott’s alpha claws.

“But you’ve never been one to take dismissal laying down.”  Peter noted for himself, arching a brow as he caught some of the images and information flicking by at rapid speed on the screens, sitting in the free computer chair that just _appeared_ next to Stiles’s own rather than sit on the unmade bed that was a replica of the one sitting temporarily abandoned in the Stilinski family home in the real world.  “Have you?”

“No, that I’m not.”  Stiles smiled grimly.  “You were right after all: I found the _method_ _of loci_ useful after reading about it in Harris’s _Hannibal Rising_ and how fictional Dr. Lecter used his memory palace.  Considering my ADHD and the sort of random facts and figures I run into, it was one of the most useful things I’ve ever researched and taught myself.  Add in the idea that _magic is real_ thanks to the unlamented Julia Baccari and,” he waved his hand in a lackadaisical _ta-da!_ gesture.  “Here we are.  You guys had it mostly right.  Occlumency traps in part inspired more by Harry Potter fanfiction than the stories themselves combined with _method of loci_ on my part and the Nogitsune being an epic dick on their part was why you were dropped into restraints at Eichen House.  How _you_ managed to cut through the bullshit to come straight here I’m banking on you being an entirely too cunning _asshole_ since you didn’t tell Scott how to manage it himself.”

“I _have_ missed you Stiles.”  Peter smiled wistfully at the genius teen.  “Your shadow of yourself that you’ve had piloting your body around and playing with the Nogitsune just isn’t the same.  I mean: _Eichen House_ , really?”

“Shut up, Creeper.”  Stiles batted at him ineffectually.  “Not other-me’s fault that I had all of a second to lock real-me away when I felt something gross trying to burrow into my head six months ago.”  He sighed, flicking a wrist at the banks of screens as he sat back.  “I’m going to need _so much therapy_ after six months of basically being in two places at once, not to mention the PTSD and hypervigilance that I already had before all this bullshit.  My little command center was in its nascent stages when the Nogitsune invaded.  There wasn’t a whole lot of time to secure myself and keep him from being able to run me around like a meat puppet at the same time.  Outsmarting a thousand-year-old malevolent fox spirit isn’t exactly _easy_ even when it doesn’t know you technically exist.”

“The chess pieces.”  Peter nodded.  “The locker key.  The automatic writing.  You’ve been leaving _yourself_ bread crumbs, not us.”

“After a fashion,” Stiles jerked a shoulder, keeping an eye on Scott’s progress.  “If you guys caught on then good.  If not then the waking-me would hopefully not do anything too stupidly self-sacrificing before I figured out a way to get the Nogitsune out of us.”

“You’ve been learning all this time.”  Peter said, admiration ripe in his tone as he continued to study the screens.  “Watching and listening to everything around your body,” he pointed at a trio of screens.  “Delving through the Nogitsune’s memories and knowledge,” then the main bank of monitors.  “Everything you already knew,” another section of the wall.  “And now everything Scott and I know.”  Peter arched his brows.  “Impressive.”

“It’s a work in progress.”  Stiles sighed, weary to his soul.  “When I’m locked in here I don’t have shit for control of my body.  Bread crumbs, whispers of ideas, it was the best I could do until I had an actual plan.”

“And you do now?”  Peter sent an expectant look at the clever teen, who met his gaze with a calm that belied any anxiety the kid might be feeling.  And it had to be there, though in a world under Stiles’s control more than any other he couldn’t read his heart or his chemosignals to tell.  No, all signs to the opposite, the world in Stiles’s head was totally mental.  Not a physical sign to be seen of Stiles’s state other than what he let Peter see.

“Have you been following the bread crumbs?"  He asked then met Peter's own grin with one of his own before adding:  "You know it would work, right?”  Stiles asked expectantly.  “Giving the Nogitsune the bite.  It’d work.  What it would call a divine move.”

“But Go isn’t your game, Stiles.”  Peter countered, smirk once more reappearing as Scott managed to fight his way to yet another door.  The one that they’d been waiting for him to find.  “Chess is.  What sort of trap have you set for a creature that thought it could take you over – body, mind, and soul – and use you to hurt everyone and everything you care about Stiles?”

The smile that crossed that handsome, pale face was nothing less than wickedly dark and sent a chill racing down Peter’s spine.

“The best kind.”  Stiles said, snapping his fingers and dismissing all but a single computer screen sitting innocently on his bedroom desk, lines of symbols and code and images continuing to race past.  “The kind an adversary never expects.”

Then with another snap of his fingers, the room was gone and Peter appeared in a white room standing beside Scott McCall and staring down the long room at the Nemeton stump with the figure of – as Stiles had put it – _waking_ -Stiles playing Go with a bandage-wrapped personification of the Nogitsune.

…

Trading a glance with Scott and showing none of the time he’d spent talking to Real-Stiles, Peter started sprinting for the pair on the stump, only to notice within moments that he wasn’t getting any closer.

Stopping with a frown, he glanced around the white-room that all of the kids involved in the replacement sacrifice had described, reaching out and slapping a hand against Scott’s chest.

“Stop.”  He said, pieces starting to snick together into a complete picture.  Stiles hadn’t told him _what_ his plan was which meant it was most likely predicated on following through with _his_ plan.  Which meant getting the attention of the plaid-clad form playing Go with a monster.  “We’re not making any progress that way and he can’t hear you screaming for him.”

“Then what do you suggest?”  Scott asked snippily, hands propped on his hips.  “You’re here to guide me, so _guide_ already.”

“In the mental plane all of us have equal control.”  Peter said a moment later, studying the pair on the stump.  “But in the end it’s still Stiles’s head no matter how much control of it the Nogitsune has taken.  It won’t let us closer…but we don’t need to be.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was trying to control you, to get your attention back when I was crazy.”  Peter arched a brow at his disappointing beta.  “How did I do it?”

“You messed with my head,” Scott scowled, _not_ pleased with how many times he’s had to deal with his personal Peter-trauma in the last who-knows-how-long.  “When I slept or…”

“When I howled.”  Peter smirked, tilting his head towards the players – including the Nogitsune who’d turned to face them.  “Go on then, _True Alpha_.  Send a message to your Second.  Tell him it’s time to wake the fuck up.”  As Scott marshaled his power, Peter sent another order streaming down a fading and fraying bond.  _Lydia now!_

Closing his eyes and cracking his neck, Scott reached down for the alpha power, then when he opened his eyes once more they were brilliant red.

Sucking in a deep breath, he held it a long moment praying that Peter’s latest idea would work, then unleashed a howl that reverberated through the plain, nearly empty room.

Moments later, almost like a miracle, Stiles’s head turned.

…

Looking back from the pair of wolves that were once more running – this time with actual progress – towards them, Stiles smiled and reached out with both arms, violently scattering the Go pieces and throwing the board off the Nemeton as the Nogitsune roared in rage as a banshee’s scream sent shockwaves like an earthquake through the Nemeton room.

“You know you made a mistake right?”  Stiles asked, reaching out and shoving his fist wrist-deep into the bandage-clad monster in the instant it was concerned more about peripheral players than the adversary in front of it.  The adversary it thought it’d already conquered and humbled.  Proof positive that trickery didn’t always require ultimate cunning.  “A divine move is only _divine_ when the other player doesn’t see it coming.”  He smirked, pulling his arm back with a pulsing black mass trapped within his fist, a duplicate of the Nogitsune’s lethal strike against the Oni at the hospital.  “And you haven’t done one _damn_ unseen thing since you set up shop inside my head.”

…

Shoved out of Stiles’s head and back to reality, Scott and Peter gasped for breath as they were thrown back in a shockwave of power along with the Nogitsune’s roar of rage.

“Lydia get out!”  Scott ordered as he clambered around to the front of the couch, the red-head rushing to obey and taking the chair she’d sat upon with her to clear some of the area in the mountain ash circle.  “Did it work?”  Scott demanded, kneeling before his friends form and ripping the duct tape away from his mouth.  “Did it work?!”

Oily, noxious smoke poured out from between Stiles’s lips and Peter grabbed Scott, pulling the alpha away and  leaping back behind the couch to put them both out of the direct line of conflict as Stiles’s body seized and the smoke roiled and formed into a duplicate of Stiles down to the rip in his shirt on the floor.

Falling forward with one last choking cough, Stiles lifted his head amber eyes _alive_ for the first time in weeks or maybe even months, and his hand snapped up catching the ink-black tanto blade Peter launched towards him as the lids over dark, lightless eyes that were twins to his own snapped open.

“Divine move?”  The Nogitsune wearing his face sprang to his feet, the two Stileses circling each other as everyone else watched in horror and the two wolves trapped with them tried to stay the hell out of the way.  “Divine _move_?  You think you have any moves at _all_?  I’m a thousand-years-old, you _can’t kill me!”_   The thing shouted in Stiles’s voice.

Stiles just smiled darkly and darted forward with a skill he didn’t possess six months before, tanto blade flashing as the Nogitsune blocked and hissed, eyes flaring at the sight of the weapon in his hand.

A weapon it thought it had hidden after using it to cut it’s host’s body open in a gory facsimile of a smile across his belly.

“Well, at least we know which one is which.”  Lydia muttered, rolling her eyes at the little outburst from Evil-Stiles, sending a bitchy look at Peter who’d _armed_ one of them without hesitation despite saying that they wouldn’t know which was which.

The Nogitsune spun, throwing Stiles into the barrier made by the mountain ash in an absent expression of supernatural strength.

The others blinked as Stiles bounced off the barrier.

“Maybe not.”  Lydia frowned.  “Why is Stiles being repelled by mountain ash?”

None of the others answered her, focusing instead on the ongoing back-and-forth of strikes and blocks and dodges as the pair of – for all intents and purposes – identical twins circled each other over and over, one landing a glancing blow then the other but neither gaining much ground against the other which worried most of their watchful audience and sent a thrill down Peter’s spine.

Stiles had confirmed his supposition after all, though without giving voice to the exact detail that he’d been focused on.

The younger man had never wanted to be a werewolf, as Peter had reminded the others he’d made that clear over and over again despite almost dying more than once over the last year.

But a fox wasn’t a wolf.

A kitsune’s powers weren’t contrary to what Stiles already _was_.

And more than anything else: a kitsune doesn’t require an alpha or anyone to control them.

It was no wonder that Stiles was willing to go along with Peter’s plan with the prize it carried for him at the end, if, as he hypothesized, that if a Nogitsune could create a duplicate of their host and then kill the original host to gain a permanent physical form that the reverse might also be true.

That if the host expelled and killed the Nogitsune, they in turn kept the spirit’s powers.

Only a hypothesis based on supposition given that no host in any record of the Japanese spirits had managed it but Peter had faith in Stiles.

And the lengths Stiles would go to protect those few people in this world he gave half a damn about.

“I never was one for GO.”  Stiles snarked back at the evil thing wearing his face, fainting high then taking out the creature with a kick to the side of its knee, sending it tumbling and jumping on top of it, pinning its shoulders to the floor as it struggled.  “Downside of creating a duplicate.”  He continued, using his free arm to pin the Nogitsune’s copy of his face to the floor and baring its temple.  “Weakness.  You’re not used to fighting things on an even playing field or being outmatched: I am.  You think I’ve run with wolves for a year and _not_ picked up a few things?  Had access to your every thought and memory and didn’t take notes?”  He snorted derisively, flipping the tanto in his hold and then stabbing down straight through the weakness in a human skull: the temple.  “I’m a chess man myself.  I favor a sacrifice to create a trap my opponent can’t escape.”

Then Stiles found he couldn’t speak at all as lightning arched up from the convulsing body beneath him, a body created by the Nogitsune’s power and will and impaled with the oldest and strongest tail of a kitsune, slamming into his body and pinning him in turn to the wooden floor of the McCall home.


	2. Chapter 2

** Fire on Fire **

**Chapter Two:**

**Aftermath or Five Minutes to Save the World**

The others screamed in shock as Stiles convulsed, power in the form of lightning pinning him to the floor of the McCall home and arching his back involuntarily as pain and power commingled _ripped_ through his body.

None of them had any _clue_ what was happening.

If that really _was_ Stiles who’d driven a tanto blade through the Nogitsune’s skull or just another one of the trickster’s mind-fucks.

Stiles’s little rant during and after killing his opponent didn’t exactly fill them with the warm-fuzzies.

None of them, that is, but Peter.

“What’s _happening_ to him?”  Lydia screamed at the wolves as Peter and Scott rushed from around the back of the couch, still contained inside the mountain ash barrier that Deaton kept Melissa McCall, Scott’s mother, and Lydia from breaking.

“I-I don’t know.”  Scott said helplessly, not even able to hold onto his best friend as Stiles convulsed lest the lightning jump from one form to the other – and electricity in any form was one of the few things capable of weakening even an Alpha werewolf.  “I don’t know what’s happening!  Peter?!”

“A divine move.”  Peter said with total honesty, then added.  “Though Stiles would probably prefer to call it a Légal Trap.  Leading the other to believe they were winning before reversing the game and making a lethal strike.  The Nogitsune never expected Stiles – or anyone – capable of putting together enough information to kill it.  Especially in the slim window while it was weakened by splitting from its host.”

“Stiles was weaker than the Nogitsune.”  Deaton commented, observing the finally-dissipating arcs of visible power with a frown.  “By far, according to everything – little as it is – we know about the process.”

“Maybe-maybe Stiles was right.”  Scott shuddered out a trembling breath as his friend stopped seizing and he was able to hold him – though whether to comfort or constrain he wasn’t sure as he lifted Stiles into his lap and wrapped his arms and legs around the other teen.  “He’s been up against things bigger and stronger and faster than him ever since we went into the preserve and _asshole_ ,” he jerked his head towards the watchful Peter.  “Bit me.”

“Did you all see the same fight I did?”  Melissa asked, lips pursed as she took in the state of the boy who’d been in and out of her house as much as her own son since he was four years old.  Though she couldn’t _really_ argue the safety precaution of the mountain ash, being kept from someone who’d been near-lethally injured only that morning and faced off against a millennium-old embodiment of chaos chafed.  “They didn’t seem all that mismatched.”

Nothing more on the subject was said at that moment, as no sooner had the last of the shivers and shudders wracking Stiles’s body ceased than the form of his duplicate-evil-twin visibly _cracked_ and crumbled into ash and dust and then nothing at all.

As if it had never _been_ in the first place.

…

Sucking in a panicked breath, Stiles forced open his eyes even as Scott’s arms and legs constricted around him with the immense strength of an Alpha werewolf, shoving aside the agony still throbbing through his body cell-by-cell as power that once _wasn’t_ his but now was as familiar to him as the latent flame of his Spark, new drives and instincts slotting into place as the power of a millennium-old Nogitsune seared through him, making and unmaking him all in the same moment.

It was more…violent than even the Bite and the change that went with it.

But at the same time it was just _more_.

After all, kitsune weren’t _made_ they were _born_ , and that is a thing of blood and violence and pain and tears unlike anything else in the world.

But by the same token that the power changed him, he changed it.

Stiles didn’t feed off of strife and pain.

He wasn’t Nogitsune, the common name for a Yako or malevolent kitsune, for all that he’d been possessed by one for six months he would never forget but that he was already certain would haunt him for years and years to come.

He couldn’t say for as long as he lived as one thing had been made clear over the weeks as they researched kitsunes in every shape and form: unless they _chose_ to destroy their tails, kitsune were eternal if not unkillable.

Unless he chose – which at the moment was a bit much to even consider – to make his tails into physical manifestations of his power and then _break_ them, he was effectively immortal unless killed.

It was a head trip and a half which coming from him and all the shit he’d been through was really saying something.

At the moment, however, there was _still_ an emergent issue otherwise known as the Oni that were going to try and kill him unless they managed to convince Noshiko, a supposedly "good" celestial kitsune, to call them off.

Kitsune fell into two types based on their actions either Yako, malevolent kitsune, or Zenko good and/or neutral kitsune, above and beyond the thirteen classifications of their powers.

The Nogitsune originally summoned by Noshiko in 1943 and trapped under the Nemeton was a Yako Kukan, an evil dark or void kitsune.

What Stiles would be…well, that remained to be seen.

First, he had to convince everyone around him – and more than a few who weren’t in his immediate vicinity – that he might be fucked up but he wasn’t evil.

He could fall apart later.

“Scott,” he coughed, lifting one arm and tapping on his best-bro’s alpha-tight hold.  “Need to breathe.”

“Stiles?”  Scott called weakly, blinking back tears.

“How do we know it’s not just another trick?”  Lydia asked, eyes narrowed as she locked onto the trio remaining inside the mountain ash barrier with laser-locked focus.  “A bunch of lights and sound effects to convince us Stiles was back?”

Stiles grinned at Lydia, eyes dancing, as he lifted his hands slapping them together and then forcing them out and breaking the mountain ash barrier without ever having to touch it.

Everyone blinked, shocked to their toes at the nonchalant use of power – of _magic_ – from a person who’d, to most of their knowledge, never used it before in his life.

“Yeah, that’s not really reassuring.”  Lydia noted drily even as Peter helped Stiles peel Scott off of him with more than one sharp nudge or pinch from werewolf claws.  “Since phenomenal cosmic powers had never really been Stiles’s purview.”

“That’s…”  Deaton admitted, tone nothing less than sheepish.  “Not _entirely_ accurate.”

“Finally he admits it.”  Stiles muttered as Peter helped him to his feet once they’d gotten anaconda-Scott off of him, his best-bro watching him with happiness-tinged suspicion, claws at the ready in case it _was_ the Nogitsune’s latest go at tricking them and thriving off the resulting strife and chaos.  “I’ve been awesome this _whole time_ but Doc there,” he jerked his head towards the emissary as he swayed on his feet, the rush of adrenaline and power finally fading enough for him to feel the weakness left behind by the duplication, fight, and subsequent rush of power remaking him, Peter steadying him with one hand on his arm not still holding a tanto.  Noshiko’s oldest tail and the bargaining chip he’d need to force the old bitch to listen to him instead of having her demon pets gut him.

Again.

Though arguably, the Nogitsune had eviscerated him the first time. 

“Didn’t deign to say anything.”

“I told you, you have a spark.”  Alan arched a brow.  “You were always the one quickest to dismiss yourself as nothing but human.”

“The part that kills me though, Doc.”  Stiles waved that off, knowing it was true enough.  Though it mostly had to do with him not _trusting_ the cryptic druid asshole.  Which since Deaton had known for _months_ that his sister was playing emissary for the Alpha Pack and _didn’t say a goddamn word,_ he felt was a healthy amount of paranoia when it came to Scott’s beloved mentor.  “Is that you should’ve known that a spark would _attract_ a creature like the Nogitsune and you didn’t say shit.  Again.”

“Is that true?”  Scott turned his wounded puppy-eyes on Deaton.  “Did you know that Stiles was the most likely to be possessed this whole time?”

“I had guesses.”  Deaton shrugged.  “Questions.  Nothing concrete.  I didn’t want to mislead anyone or be the cause of anymore innocent blood being spilled because I was wrong.  I have to keep the balance, Scott.”  He shook his head, looking away from the disappointment written on the true alpha’s face.  “The darach unleashed a darkness unlike any other.  It took a profound sacrifice to counter it.”

“What,” Melissa swallowed harshly as she stared at the form of her not-quite-a-son as Stiles seemed to grow in strength and health as she watched.  Minutes after standing and breaking a mountain ash line and he didn’t need Peter’s support to stay steady on his feet.  Bruises he’d gained in his fight against his evil twin faded.  “What sacrifice?”

“My humanity.”  Stiles managed to force out from his desert-dry throat, moving towards the kitchen where water and _sweet blessed food_ waited now that the mountain ash wasn’t containing him or his evil twin any longer.  “Or at least part of it.  And my mortality.”

“What does he mean?”  Scott asked, grabbing hold of Deaton’s arm in a panic as he watched Stiles pound all of the water in the half-gallon filter-pitcher his mom kept in their fridge before going after the cheese and lunch meat and leftover pizza.  “Deaton, _what does he mean?”_

“He’s not human anymore.”  Peter said, satisfaction _oozing_ from every pore and letter.  “He’s a kitsune.”

He let his eyes switch over to killer-wolf-blue and took in the beautiful, dark aura of living shadows forming a humanoid fox that overwrote Stiles for a moment before fading away, Scott following his lead and seeing the same before blinking and allowing his eyes to fade back to human brown, devastation in every inch of his face and body.

Which, Stiles being Stiles, he caught from the corner of his eye.

“Hey, Scotty.”  He frowned, trying to soothe but not really being, well, _equipped_ at the moment since clean-up after his very-much-not-welcome-roommate and dealing with Noshiko was going to take all of his remaining fucks to give for the rest of the day until he could faceplant into his mattress and sleep for twenty hours straight.  Sleep having become just as much a prized commodity during the last six months – and particularly the last few weeks – as water and food.  “Don’t freak out man, I’m still me.  Just with an upgrade.”

“Question.”  Lydia pressed.  “How did Stiles break the mountain ash line when the Nogitsune couldn’t?”

Stiles gestured to Deaton to take that one as he took the half-gallon of orange juice Melissa – who was still watching him with a combination of care and caution – handed him once he’d finished off the water to wash down his protein-heavy snack to replenish his energy after major healing and use of powers.

Even if most of it was done by his former hitchhiker, it was still mostly his body that’d borne the burden of the powers and energy used.

“I imagine because Stiles retained his spark powers despite subsuming the Nogitsune via an ancient ritual of mortal combat.”  Deaton postulated, turning events and everything said between the two beings over in his head and trying to make sense of them.  “Sparks, druids, even darachs are all forms of a very _human_ natural power.  Whatever type of kitsune he is now must not be at odds with that power.”

Which was one hell of an advantage Stiles would possess over most other supernatural creatures.

“Dark kitsune.”  Scott and Peter answered in unison as the others – including Stiles – turned to them in wordless question over what form of kitsune aura they saw via their werewolf sight.

“A neutral one, naturally.”  Peter continued with a shrug as he leaned against the kitchen wall.  “Given there was none of the sense of decay or malevolence that surrounded the Nogitsune.”

“Then I would imagine,” Deaton extrapolated.  “That human realms of magic that tend towards neutral or darker arts would be the easiest for Mr. Stilinski to learn given the new bent to his self.”

Stiles and Peter snorted, getting incredulous looks from the others before Stiles explained what likely they both were thinking.

“You’re talking about me like I didn’t – willingly – set an arson survivor _on fire_ , as well as advocate for killing both the darach and the members of the Alpha Pack.”  Stiles said, sitting back in relief that his gnawing hunger had finally been abated after laying waste to most of the easily-consumed contents of the McCall fridge.  “I’ve always been morally-ambivalent at best and violently-leaning at worst.  It’s not exactly a _change_ for me, Doc.”

“We get it,” Lydia sighed, rolling her eyes.  “The Nogitsune went for the most powerful host it could find that wasn’t a supernatural creature it couldn’t possess.  Stiles’s moral-compass or lack thereof isn’t an issue anymore now than it was a year ago since despite advocating for death to our enemies he holds back nine times out of ten.”

“And aren’t I just the lucky duck to be number ten?”  Peter snarked, irked at the reminder of being burned alive take-two.

“Technically you were number one.”  Stiles smirked unrepentantly at the Zombiewolf.  “Scotty learned _after_ that, that I’m not joking when I suggest killing people who are a danger to my loved ones.”

“Well, at least Scott learned _something_ from me after all.”

“Alright.”  Melissa held up a hand before it could devolve into a snark fest in her kitchen.  “Stiles needs a shower and then an exam.  We don’t know how all,” she waved vaguely in the direction of the living room.  “ _That_ affected him.  Everyone _not_ my son or Stiles needs to go find the others, especially since they should’ve _been here by now_.”

“And we’ll need them if Noshiko isn’t inclined to listening to hold off the Oni until I can prove I’m not the Nogitsune.”  Stiles added – helpfully he thought though the exasperated look Mel shot him said otherwise.

“Yes, that, go.”  She pointed towards the front door commandingly.

“We have unfinished business, Ms. Martin.”  Peter reminded the banshee as they stood outside on the sidewalk, Alan having already disappearing into his car to search the high school for the missing Aiden and Ethan.  “I was promised a name for helping un-possess Stiles.  I came through, now it’s your turn.”

Lydia clenched her jaw then said it: “There’s two children who were adopted in the Beacon Hills area around the time of your missing child.”

“Go on.”

“Jackson Whittemore and Malia Tate.”

Peter dismissed the second name, already familiar with it.

He’d never been idiot enough to dally with the Desert Wolf, no matter how lovely Corrine was, and remembered quite well Talia helping facilitate the girl’s adoption.

The other however, a wicked grin crossed his face.

Oh, yes, he knew quite a bit about Jackson Whittemore, kanima and currently an American werewolf in London.

And fortunate for Peter, his passport was up to date.

…

“You’re visibly malnourished and dehydrated.”  Melissa summed up her findings after Stiles stripped down in Scott’s bedroom to his boxers and let her go through a basic exam, including unwrapping his bandages from being eviscerated to reveal a simple half-moon scar cutting across his lower abdomen that looked healed for months instead of a gaping wound from the night before.  “You’ve lost thirty pounds in the last six months, at least half of that in the last couple of weeks.  Stiles.”

Amber eyes lifted from studying his hands to meet her concerned gaze.

“You need to rest and eat and hydrate.”  She told him even as she knew it was likely to fly in one ear and out the other as long as the Oni were still a threat.  “Seriously: you _have_ to sleep.”

“The second I sleep the persona from the last six months – that I’m keeping back through sheer will at the moment,” Stiles spoke lowly, trying to keep a worriedly-pacing Scott down in the kitchen from overhearing him.  Though Kira had arrived not long after Mel had hauled him upstairs, so Scott was at least partially distracted.  “Will merge with the core me that’s talking to you right now.”  His smile was nothing short of bitter.  “I have to deal with Noshiko with a clear head untainted by the trauma of being mentally and emotionally abused by an evil fox spirit for the last six months, ok?  I’ll fall apart and put myself back together later.”

Melissa shook her head, already knowing it was a losing battle and just not having the capacity at the moment to fight it anyway.

“Sometimes you’re so much like your Dad it’s uncanny.”  Was all she could say in the face of that implacable Stilinski resolve.

“Yeah.”  Stiles chuckled drily, reaching out for a clean t-shirt that Mel had gotten from his stash of clothes in Scott’s closet while he was in the shower, washing off days of grime and sweat since his body hadn’t been bathed since the Nogitsune had escaped Eichen House.  “Had to get it from somewhere, right?”

“I’m going to tell him what I just told you.”  Melissa shut down any _hint_ at keeping Stiles’s state of health from his father before the notion could fully form.  “Rest, food, water or sports drinks, and repeat.  Once the latest crisis is cleared it’s going to be nothing but Netflix, Gatorade, and a meal plan from the hospital nutritionist for you, brat.”

“Yeah yeah yeah.”  Stiles snarked, settling the t-shirt that _shouldn’t_ bag on him as much as it did, the damn thing was like a tent, on his shoulders, catching sight of the Lichtenburg figure scarring creeping up his neck.  A reminder along with the smile on his stomach of a time he’d never be able to forget.  He blinked, shaking it off.  Freak out later.  Dealing with Noshiko now.  “I hear you, Mel.”

“Good.”  Melissa arched an unimpressed brow at her semi-adopted second son.  “You better hear me or I’ll check you into Beacon Memorial _myself_ to ensure you get the care your body needs after the punishment it’s been put through by that evil bastard.”

“Whatever you say, Mama McCall.”  Stiles unfurled a lanky arm and hauled her in for a one-armed hug, pressing a firm kiss to the top of her head when she allowed it without protest, then started for the stairs.  “Netflix, Gatorade, got it.”

Rounding the curve of the staircase, he saw why he hadn’t heard much from the downstairs.

Standing in an impasse with her daughter and Scott was none other than the vengeful – and positively _brimming_ with regret – Noshiko Yukimura, though as the sun hadn’t yet set her demonic minions weren’t yet present and accounted for.

“Mrs. Yukimura.”  He tilted his head to the side, allowing his eyes to flare with orange flames for a split-second that she caught from the infinitesimal widening of her eyes.  “Late, and unhelpful as always.”

“Stiles.”  Scott and his mom chided him in eerie unison even as Mel shoved passed his still form standing on the bottom stair.

Stiles crossed his arms and arched an unrepentant brow.

It wasn’t like what he’d said _wasn’t_ true after all.

“That’s not the boy.”  Noshiko scoffed, unsheathing her katana from her back.  “That’s the demon.”

Stiles made an annoying buzzer sound, shaking his head even as the others rolled their eyes at his antics.

Though they couldn’t get truly mad at him.

Not at the moment.

Not when they just got him back – truly back – for the first time in what felt like forever.

“Try again.”  Stiles cracked his neck and allowed his aura to truly flare out around him, Kira and Noshiko gasping at the sight.

“ _Kyubi no Kitsune_.”  Noshiko stared at the nine perfectly intact and undamaged tails surrounding the impertinent child.  For all its age, the Nogitsune hadn’t possessed all nine of its tails, one being lost long before Noshiko summoned it to rain down pain and chaos on the terrible soldiers at Oak Creek Concentration Camp.  “Either you’ve regained a tail or…”

“Or done the impossible?”  Stiles suggested, moving his hand from behind his back and showing what he held – her own oldest tail in physical form.  “With a little help, naturally.”

Noshiko’s face hardened as two of her Oni minions materialized flanking her as the sun set, allowing them freedom to roam.

“Never has a host defeated a Nogitsune.”  She hissed, flicking her eyes in command towards the Oni who moved forward, Scott and Kira moving to counter them, only for the creatures to stop in their tracks.

And for good reason, as more than a dozen of their brethren – their _stronger_ brethren – came into being flanking Stiles and ringing the room, all eyes turning to the former Nogitsune host who held the broken pieces of Noshiko’s tail in his hands.

“How does it work again?”  Stiles tilted his head slightly in question.  “The older the tail, the stronger the Oni?  _Protect the people of Beacon Hills_.”  He ordered his summoned demonic minions, never taking his eyes off of Noshiko even as his Oni battled her own back and destroyed them, all others frozen in a tableau in the mere moments it took the stronger brethren to destroy the threat to Beacon Hills and disappear to continue carrying out his command.

“You have _no idea_ what you’ve done!”  Noshiko shouted.  “The Oni aren’t simple tools you _stupid boy_ , how they carry out your command is entirely up to them!”

“Then call off your Oni.”  Stiles demanded.  “Release them and send them back to the ether and I’ll do the same.”  He clucked his tongue warningly as she hesitated.  “Best hurry before my Oni decide that _you_ count as a threat to the people of Beacon Hills.”

“A host has never defeated a Nogitsune.”  Noshiko repeated herself in a broken whisper as a tear tracked down her smooth face.

“Well, to be fair.”  Stiles shrugged, knowing what was tearing her apart – that _he_ managed it and her lover didn’t – but not really caring. 

She’d brought down pain and suffering on those he cared about because of her calling down the Oni.  And that was on top of being the source of the Nogitsune itself.  He had sympathy for the pain and rage that brought her to that choice all those years ago but he found himself unable to forgive it all the same.  If _either_ of her shitty decisions had cost him someone he cared about he wouldn’t have been nearly so benign or benevolent in his orders to the Oni regarding the now barely-more-than-mortal Noshiko.

“I had help.”

A stream of Japanese passed from between her lips, broken and stuttering in places, but it came nonetheless, echoed moments later by the same spell being given voice by Stiles.

“It is done.”  Noshiko announced, giving one last bitter glance at the boy and the last remnants of her power that he still held in his grasp.  “ _Kyubi no Kitsune.”_

“ _Zenko kukan_ , to be exact.”  Stiles shot at her back, enjoying her flinch _almost_ despite himself.  “Neutrality to the Nogitsune’s malevolence.”

She nodded, once, without turning back to face him and strode away.

“That’s it?”  Scott almost couldn’t believe it, after everything they’d gone through thanks to Noshiko, that it was just _done_.  “It’s over?”

“Except for the clean-up.”  Stiles sighed, rolling his head on his shoulders and dropping the shards of the tanto, allowing them to crumble and fade away now that the power that it represented was dead and gone.  “Yeah.  It’s over.”

…

Years later, Stiles would look back at a five-minute window on an April day and take a count of the people who’d died of beheading via Oni.

He knew it would never be a complete list, but given that his dad had told the pack within a day of the “mysterious” murders of Gerard Argent in his nursing home and a woman that looked suspiciously like Kate Argent whose body was found in the preserve, he at least was at peace with the knowledge that whoever the people killed during that five-minute standoff with Noshiko _were_ they were a legitimate threat to the people of Beacon Hills.

His verbal command to the Oni might have been vague and open to interpretation.

Yes, this was true.

But what Noshiko couldn’t know was that because Stiles had been watching everything around his body whether his persona or the Nogitsune were in control of it as well as dredging through the Nogitsune’s memories, he knew that the Oni were his to command _beyond_ that initial order until the moment the initial order was completed _or_ he dismissed them.

Orders that didn’t have to be verbal, as the connection between Oni and summoner was almost entirely mental and certainly magical.

He knew he would never have a full accounting as Oni had a freedom of instantaneous movement and powers that even as their summoner he couldn’t fully comprehend.

Names on his accounting included the seemingly-mundane such as orderly Brunski from Eichen House who proved during the investigation into his murder to be a serial killer, a mentally unstable banshee who’d escaped along with the Nogitsune named Meredith, and several of the Eichen House staff or inmates in the supernatural jail it contained; to the well-known and famous or infamous such as a high-up in the Pentagon named Alexander Pierce, an Army general named Ross, and a Baron of all things called Von Strucker.

All dead of the same cause: an Oni’s blade severing their neck from their spine.

From what Stiles could surmise using hindsight, the Oni had operated on two very different and distinct levels when it came to carrying out his orders.

First were the immediate, localized threats: Gerard, Kate, Meredith, etc.

What he _didn’t_ anticipate, and yeah his bad though it was very much a case of sorry-not-sorry for the oversight, were the opposites of the immediate and localized threats: the global, looming threats that were comprised from the information he gained access to later in life, of HYDRA, HYDRA leadership, and the worst-of-the-worst of its agents.  Threats that he had no idea of even existing.  But the Oni did.  How, he couldn’t say even with his knowledge of the Japanese demons.  They just…did and took action according to the threat and his orders.

As long as, that is, the Oni’s selected targets were within their strike zone: between sunset and sunrise.

Of everyone killed under his command to the Oni, only Meredith and a few of the Eichen House inmates Stiles ever felt anything approaching sympathy for.

Yes, they were dangerous and apparently threats to the people he cared about.

But in their cases, at least, they often couldn’t help it because of their mental states.

So, he mourned their deaths.

But he never regretted them, not even for a moment.

…

Sheriff Noah Stilinski pulled up into his own driveway with a feeling of tense fear that hadn’t dissipated despite all of Scott’s and Melissa’s and even Alan’s assurances that Stiles was back.

That it was really Stiles.

That in the words of Scott it was all over.

The hell it was.

The _battle_ might be over, even the war, but the aftermath?

That had just begun.

Melissa had given him the rundown: undernourished, dehydrated, dropped thirty pounds and in desperate need of a week’s sleep plus several new scars; his kid, his _son_ , when it came to Stiles it was nowhere _near_ over.

And really, in the wake of everything else that had happened, it gave him only one place to turn to.

Pulling up a contact that he never failed to move over no matter how many times he replaced his phone or it ended up damaged or out-and-out destroyed, he set it to ringing as he stared at the warm yellow of square of light coming from the living room window.

“Noah?”

“Hey, Phil.”  Noah blew out a heavy breath, closing his eyes with an equally heavy breath as he knew, down to his bones, that his kid might not ever forgive him for what he was about to do.  “I, uh, I need a favor.  It’s about Stiles…”

…

The asset was on assignment in the Crimea when his handler missed a check-in.

First one.

Then another.

Before the third, the asset was gone and all the HYDRA minions who eventually remembered the legend of the Winter Soldier and that in the wake of the death of the entire upper echelons of their organization a new handler to the assassin would have to be assigned to manage the asset found at the check-in point were a trio of trackers and kill-switches dug out of the metal and circuitry of the asset’s prosthetic arm.

They searched for the asset but never located it.

Never thinking for a moment that the longer the asset went without memory suppression, the more came back.

Especially regarding an abandoned Siberian bunker and base that contained a squad programmed to seek his death first.

Targets in need of elimination if he – the asset – had any intention of ever being anything more no matter _how_ scrambled his brains were.

…

Noah felt a deep wave of soul-deep relief when he walked into his home that April night and saw his son – rundown, visibly exhausted, weary, _but alive_ – sitting at the kitchen table with a cold beer sitting by Noah’s seat, piping-hot plates of cabbage rolls and pierogi waiting for both of them to dig in, and a big plastic bottle of Gatorade with the cap already off sitting next to Stiles’s elbow as bright amber eyes tracked his process across the room with hungry, wounded eyes.

Stiles was looking at him like he was the greatest thing he’d ever seen in his life.

Like he’d looked at Noah when his son – his too brave and stupid for his own good son – rushed under a collapsing tree stump to save him, Argent, and Mel from being crushed to death with only his baseball bat and sarcasm as his weapons of choice.

Unbuckling his gun belt, Noah hung it up on the peg waiting for it on the kitchen wall next to his keys and his Sheriff’s jacket, then held out his arms in silent beckon.

And that was all his kid needed then he was pushing away from the set kitchen table and falling into his embrace, a sob shaking loose from Stiles’s sometimes-frightening level of self-control.

“It’s alright, Stiles, I’ve gotcha.”  Noah whispered, holding his son tight and rocking them both back and forth, noticing a few things as he did so.

Jesus, Mel was right.

Stiles was little more than skin, bone, and tightly-wound muscle.

How had he _missed_ that over the last few months?

Was he really _that_ busy?

When had Stiles grown taller than him?

When had his shoulders gotten as wide as his own?

When did his little boy grow up?

Noah had a feeling that the answer to all of those questions were one and the same: when Noah was looking but just not _seeing_ , side by side with being hung up on the fact that a decent portion of Beacon Hills was supernatural or supernaturally-inclined.

“I’m here, son.”  Noah continued to reassure his boy, lifting one hand and running it over the shaggy brown hair that had grown out since the summer.  “I’m here.  It’s going to be okay.”

Stiles almost choked on a laughing sob at that.

“No, Dad.”  He laugh-sobbed into the Sheriff’s uniform shirt.  “I really don’t think _anything_ is going to be okay anytime soon.”

“Alright.”  Noah nodded, jaw firming and eyes flashing over his kid’s shoulder where the perceptive little shit couldn’t see it.  If he’d been unsure of his decision walking into the house to see Stiles waiting for him hopefully, he damn sure wasn’t anymore.  “Then talk to me and between us we’ll see what we can do to _make_ it okay.”

“Yeah,” Stiles backed up a step, scrubbing away the tear-tracks from his cheeks with the heel of his palms.  “Yeah, that sounds…that sounds like a plan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're interested in what the Oni strike zone looks like, I have a map with an estimation based on a bit of math I did up on my Facebook under the Fire on Fire album. It's not an exact science or perfect by any means but it gives you an idea of where the Oni would've been able to reach and where they wouldn't.


	3. Chapter 3

** Fire on Fire **

**Chapter Three:**

**It’s Called Efficient Use of Assets, Nick**

Heavy discussion was shelved at the Stilinski household in preference for a quiet meal and no discussion of crises, drama, or trauma.

Just father and son, eating dinner and enjoying a meal together before they had to face the consequences of recent events and quite possibly have the bottom drop out of their moment of make believe.

A nervous tension ran underneath the soft chatter and laughs, mostly about Scott’s hopelessness when it comes to falling head-over-heels and having a definite _type_ or reminisces from when Stiles was little.

For both of them.

Each had things to divulge to the other that left them feeling uncertain and off-balance, fearful that despite the strong bond and love between them that recent events might finally be that last thing, the tipping point, that shattered their relationship once and for all.

Once the plates were cleared and seconds were had, both men feeling stuffed beyond the point of no return and lethargic with it, Stiles rose with a sigh and rinsed the dishes before loading the dishwasher and setting it to run, his father rising and getting himself a second beer before retreating to the living room, allowing his son to collect himself and ready himself before the conversation they needed to have.

Stiles braced his hands on the edge of the sink, leaning forward and bowing his head for a long moment, then rose and straightened up, staring at the shadowy reflection of himself in the glass of the kitchen window then setting his shoulders and grabbing a new bottle of Gatorade – Mel’s orders having been heard – and strode into the living room just a notch easier than he would up the stairs to a gallows.

Well, he could be accused of a lot, but being undramatic had never been one of them.

He was a teenager, recent possession and assimilation of a millennium’s worth of memories aside, he was allowed his moments of melodrama.

Cracking open his sport’s drink, he settled into his regular spot on the couch facing his dad in his chair and asked:

“How much did the others tell you?”

“Deaton fished dead flies out of Aiden, Ethan, and Isaac at the school.”  Noah reported, though he knew at least some of it wouldn’t be news to his kid.  “They’re recovering after trying to kill each other under the Nogitsune’s possession.  Derek coughed up black sludge at the loft that Argent is pretty sure the same thing given he was trying to light Chris _on fire_ not five minutes before he passed out and started seizing.  There was a mass-sighting of the Oni at Eichen House, they tore through over a dozen staff and inmates in the supernatural supermax under the basement level that Morrell called Deaton to help clean up.  Oh,” Noah arched a brow.  “And apparently Peter Hale managed to – somehow – get Scott to hijack your head to dig you out from under the Nogitsune’s control then you had a death-match which you won with the thing, and then not even an hour later won a stand-off with Mrs. Yukimura.  There was also something about you using her tail to kill the Nogitsune and summon then dismiss the Oni but that part’s a little fuzzy.  And Mel says you need R&R plus Deaton said something about fractures in your psyche in need of healing.  How’d I do?”

Stiles took a long swallow of Gatorade then set the bottle down on the coffee table with a resolute click.

“Pretty good summary of today, actually.”  Stiles said, rubbing his hands over his face, feeling a million years old and weary to the bone.  “Want me to fill in some of those gaps?”

“Please.”  Noah heaved a weighty breath, taking a pull of his beer.  “Mel and Alan weren’t exactly heartening.”

“Yeah, we kinda leave the sunshine-and-unicorns to Scott.”  Stiles bit at his cheek, thinking a million miles an hour of how to explain something that he barely knew how to put into words let alone make _sense_ to his grounded, pragmatic dad.  At the beginning, he supposed, then went on to tell his dad almost the exact same thing as he’d said to Peter regarding his mental shields and learning from the Nogitsune, finishing with: “Peter knew enough about how I think to follow my bread crumbs and plan accordingly.”

“The mental link and the kitsune tail.”  Noah frowned, nodding slowly and turning it all over in his head.  “Why would Hale want the tail?”

“Peter isn’t exactly able to go back to being an architect, dad.”  Stiles shrugged.  “Being legally dead makes that a bit difficult.  From what I can tell he works as a fixer and information broker.  A kitsune’s tail, especially the oldest from a nine-hundred-year-old celestial kitsune, would be worth quite a lot.  If I hadn’t needed it to kill the Nogitsune which if I’d failed the Hales were pretty high up on its target list, and with Peter self-preservation trumps profit any day of the week.”

“Yeah, I can see that.”  Noah agreed with that much easily enough.  Though it bit at him that it was _Peter Hale_ , amoral, near-sociopath murderer Peter Hale who managed to follow a trail Stiles was leaving that nobody else but Noah and Derek were even close to knowing even existed.  “Hard to enjoy the spoils of criminality if you’re dead.”

Stiles shook his head, correcting his dad’s assumption.

“The Nogitsune never cared about death.  It was never about the kill, that was an afterthought.  A consequence of the chaos and pain and strife that it fed off and reveled in.  Deaths were collateral damage to it, or a device to torment the living, not the goal itself.”

“And the cracks Alan mentioned?”

A bittersweet smile curved over Stiles’s mouth.

“C’mon Dad.”  He shrugged, looking away from those pained blue eyes.  “I already was dealing with what was certainly going to explode into full PTSD after your kidnapping, the paranoia and hypervigilance were already well-established by the time Peter kidnapped me to find Derek over a year ago.  And nothing since then has happened to alleviate it.  Having to squirrel away the core of myself to keep the Nogitsune from taking full control of me and my abilities certainly didn’t help.  I have to re-assimilate the part of me that actively dealt with the possession while the rest of me worked to undermine it.  Saying I have a few cracks in my psyche is like saying the meteor that took out the dinos was a _bit_ devastating.”  His laugh was both self-deprecating and dark.  “I’m not going to be okay again for a long time.”

“You’re talking about DID.”  Noah realized with an internal scream of rage that he hid – successfully – from his kid who’d lived through so much shit Noah barely knew where to start shoveling to get Stiles some breathing room.

DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, was a mental disorder that psychologists the world-over debated the validity of.

Given the hell the Nogitsune had made them all live for weeks and weeks, Noah knew a few things about trauma effecting the mind as he’d tried to figure out what was going on with his son.

“Not really.”  Stiles frowned, trying to figure out how to explain it.  What he’d done to part of himself in order to protect the whole of himself.  “It’s more like, I made a 3D copy of myself in my head and let it run around and keep the Nogitsune busy.  It was still me, just a me that only served that specific purpose.  A duplicate, only mental instead of the physical copy the Nogitsune made to try and gain control of my body and abilities permanently.”

“And that’s something a, a _spark_ can do?”  Noah double-checked.  “Just make a copy of yourself to pilot your body while you-you is busy with research or whatever inside your head?”

Stiles puffed out his cheeks, tilting his head from side to side.

“One with a genius IQ, training in the method of loci, who’s read too much Harry Potter and associated fanfiction, and the belief to make it work: yeah.”  He shrugged.  “Not that I ever plan to do it again.  It’s…uncomfortable to say the least.  Like being a stranger or an observer in my own life.  Not cool.”

“But necessary at the time.”  Noah scrubbed his hands over his face.  “Jesus, Stiles.  What kind of side-effects is that going to have?”

“Wellp.”  Stiles winced.  “It’s probably a good thing you’re already used to me having nightmares, I can say that much for certain.  It’ll be a couple of weeks before I can get everything sorted out upstairs,” he tapped a finger against his temple.  “Then they should calm down at least a little.”

“Jesus, Stiles.”  Noah shook his head, flabbergasted that _this_ was his kid’s reality to the point that his son didn’t even _register_ how nuts that was.  That Noah was supposed to just be okay with his kid doing himself possibly irreparable damage because the fucked-up supernatural forces in this fucked-up town seemed to be attracted to his son like he was the living embodiment of otherworldly catnip.  “And when the next crisis attacks, what then?  You jump right back into the fray despite only being seventeen and a high school junior?  Despite the fact that what you’ve _already_ been through has done you real and significant harm?”

“At least I’m still alive.”  Stiles commented, head lowering a bit more with each demand from his dad as he kept his eyes locked on the drops of condensation dripping down the side of his half-empty Gatorade bottle.  “That’s more than a lot of people can say.”

“You-” Noah spluttered a moment, rolling his eyes up to stare at the ceiling as he prayed for patience to deal with his dumb-ass self-sacrificing – or self-flagellating, he wasn’t quite certain which it was – kid.  “You realize you’re not helping your case, there, right kiddo?  There are _clearly_ functioning adults who’ve been content to let you kids pull more than your own weight in the shit-storm that is this town and – believe me – that is something I’m going to address with Deaton, Morrell, Ito, Argent, and the Yukimuras.”

“Not the Hales?”  Stiles quirked a grin as he caught the obvious omission to that list of functioning adults.

“I said _functioning_ adults.”  Noah said drily, Stiles barking a laugh at the burn to the Hales.  “Which neither of the adult Hales qualify as given their issues and beside the point.  Stiles, kid,” he sighed, getting up and plopping down next to his son, reeling him into a side-ways hug with a firm arm around his shoulder.  “You kids, all of you, need _help_ not more monsters or evil bastards to fight.”

“Tell that to the Nemeton.”  Stiles said bitterly, even as he sunk into the warmth of his father’s embrace.

“If I thought the magic tree stump in the preserve was willing to listen to me bitch at it to cut its shit out, believe me I would.”  Noah enjoyed the snort of laughter that pulled from his weary and damaged son.  His baby boy.  _Claudia’s_ baby boy.  Oh, yeah, Stiles isn’t going to like his solution to this mess _at all_.

That said, his kid was still a minor and was shit out of luck when it came to effectively negating his dad’s wishes concerning his welfare until he turned eighteen.

“I’ll be okay, Dad.”  Stiles sighed.  “Like Mel said: some R&R and I’ll be fine.”

“Sure you will be.”  Noah snorted.  “Which is a good thing you’ll be able to get it in New York with your Uncle Phil.”

Stiles started to nod, almost drifting off to sleep, when what his Dad said penetrated his weariness and had him sitting up straight and staring at his old man with wide eyes.

Wait.

Uncle Phil, New York.

What?

…

“We lost ten highly-ranked agents, five high-profile assets, all but two of the members of the World Security Council…”

Agent Phil Coulson, Assistant Director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division, rolled his eyes and held in a sigh as his boss and friend Director Nick Fury ranted in his ear as he tooled his 1962 red Corvette convertible through the streets of New York City towards his brownstone.

It was rare that he was _actually_ home, but the brick building in Manhattan’s Upper East Side served as a decent holding point for the random bits and pieces he collected in his travels and a permanent address for his SHIELD file.  Now that his brother-in-law had called him regarding his nephew however, it was about to be a lot more than a temporary base between call-outs and months at a time at the Triskelion or aboard the helicarrier.

Admittedly, it’d be more than a bit of a culture shock for Stiles after growing up in Beacon Hills to be transplanted into the middle of NYC, but something told him his clever nephew would adjust.

In time.

Time that could perhaps be truncated if Stiles was anything like Phil remembered and did best when he had a project to work on.

And it wasn’t like Nick wasn’t going to assign him to their New York office for the next year or so _anyway_.

Sometimes he thought Nick just liked to bitch.

“Not that great of a loss.”  Phil commented, almost in an aside regarding the WSC members as Nick kept on with his rant without so much as pausing.

“…clean-up following the Events in New Mexico, Stark needing clean-up after Hammer and Vanko’s little temper-tantrum, a frozen national treasure being thawed out, and you, my one good eye, are requesting _leave_?”

“Just a week.”  Phil added, as if it made everything better which from the disgusted sound his friend made wasn’t going to cut it.  “To get Stiles settled.”

“And that’s _another thing_.”  Nick ramped up for a second wind at a rant.  “Have you _seen_ the file we have on this _Beacon Hills, California_ and your nephew Mikey-”

“Don’t try and say it, Nick.”  Phil cut in with a laugh.  “I grew up speaking Polish and _I_ don’t even know what my sister was thinking half the time.  Just call him Stiles.”

“Stiles then,” Nick allowed, though they both knew very well what Claudia Stilinski neé Coulson was thinking when she named her son after her father-in-law.  It wasn’t every kid that had a Howling Commando for a paternal grandfather after all.  Honestly, letting Noah Stilinski leave the Rangers to become a LEO was a tragic waste of talent.  But at least SHIELD had gotten Phil, one out of two wasn’t bad.  “Your nephew has spent the last year neck-deep in the sort of action that if it’d ever spilled beyond the town or outside of the local ability to handle would have us stepping in.  And that doesn’t count his not-exactly-sterling ability even prior to that to obey the law.  His little Academic Assistance racket only _barely_ scrapes legal on his end, let alone what his clients get up to with their ongoing love of fraud.”

“C’mon Nick.”  Phil sighed as he pulled up to his garage and hit the button on Lola’s dash that had the security system running an in-depth scan before calling an all-clear and lifting the garage door for him pull in and park before heading inside.  “He’s seventeen-year-old genius in a small town.  There’s a lot worse things he could’ve gotten up to than selling answers to homework.”

“Try term and thesis papers with a price tag anywhere from twenty bucks to five grand.”  Nick commented drily, impressed almost despite himself as the financials on Stiles Stilinski’s little enterprise scrolled across his screen. Though at least they now had a list of applicants to blacklist if any of Stilinski's "clients" tried for an internship or placement with his agency.  If the little bastard was going to be living with his best agent and friend then he was going to know everything about him from his taste in porn – which was actually rather varied and diverse for a teenager from bumfuck nowhere – to whether he preferred Corn Flakes or Wheaties.  His brows lifted, this time flat-out impressed, as the techs he had gathering information managed to track down one of said-thesis papers on _Folklore in European Culture and Literature_ and he began to read the paper that’d been purchased and used for a capstone project at Harvard for a Bachelor’s in Literature.  Damn.  Kid was worth every penny.  “He’s made enough in prior years to gain a nice little nest-egg then in the last year kicked into high gear and socked away more than his old man makes as a small-time sheriff.”

“I don’t know whether to be proud of him or concerned over how in depth you’re digging into my nephew, Nick.”

A snort met that bit of bullshit.

“Don’t even try me, you know it’s both.”  Nick scoffed.  “You weren’t kidding about the genius,” and he had knowledge of the sort of things that SHIELD dealt with daily.  “Has he ever been tested?  Wait, never mind,” he checked himself as the kid’s medical records were unearthed and he found the intelligence testing that took place during his ADHD testing and diagnosis.

“Nick…”

“One hundred sixty-eight.”  Nick whistled, impressed.  SHIELD liked to collect the best and brightest but an IQ like that was only exceeded by the likes of Stark and Banner.

“No, Nick.”  Phil sighed, rolling his eyes.  “You’re not recruiting my underaged nephew before he even graduates from high school.”

“I thought you wanted clearance for him?”  Nick asked, unimpressed – and determined to ignore – Phil’s objection though it was noted.

“To help out with one of those projects you rattled off during your original objections before you realized the potential in Stiles and shifted from bitching to plotting.”  Phil called him on his bullshit in a total deadpan.  “And I still want a week’s leave to get him settled.”

Nick frowned.  “Which project could a kid that has all the hallmarks of either an excellent agent or a pain-in-the-ass-criminal help with?”

“Captain Rogers, which is a much better idea than Sitwell’s,” one of the recently-deceased agents taken out by an inhuman or mutant assassin raid.  “Idea of shoving him in a 40’s timestamp and trying to snow him.”

“You want to shove a teenager with what looks like undiagnosed PTSD and a super-soldier who _definitely_ is going to have PTSD after the ultimate of sacrifice plays and is seventy years out of time at each other and hope nothing explodes?”  Nick asked incredulously, taking the phone from his ear and staring at it in bafflement a moment before putting it back to his ear.

“It’s called efficient use of assets, Nick.”  Phil snarked.  “Stiles gets access to SHIELD therapists to help him with his own damage, plus the gym and training floors.  The Captain gets the same plus a guide to the twenty-first century who won’t treat him like anything but a regular guy thanks to all the shit Stiles has been through.”

“Group therapy for potential time-bombs, that’s your play?”

“If you have a better idea, Nick, I’m all ears.”

Silence fell between the friends – and the Director and Assistant Director of SHIELD – as Nick stared down at the picture on his screen of a skinny kid with a vicious bruise on one cheekbone and a split lip circa a beating that his father suspected was _not_ acquired from angry jocks and the SHIELD asset keeping an eye on things in Beacon Hills theorized was from one Gerard Argent, former head of the Argent hunting dynasty.

“I hope you have a super-soldier proofed guestroom Phil.”  Nick finally sighed, shoulders slumping.  “We’ll try it your way.  Better pray it works.”

…

The fight over his dad’s big announcement – _totalitarian ultimatum_ , more like – had to wait until the next day since Dad pointed out, rightfully but whatever, that Stiles was asleep on his feet and would make a much more convincing argument when he wasn’t all-but-falling-down after the last round of supernatural contretemps.

That wasn’t how the sheriff put it, but Stiles felt after months of possession and a night filled with sweats, nightmares, and choked-back screams, a bit of purple prose was allowed.

Then to add insult to injury, eventually his traumatized mind had enough of nightmares and dropped him straight into a deep sleep, Stiles blinking awake rested and groggy to the sight of a worried-Dad sitting in his computer chair dressed in sweats and a Beacon County Sheriff’s Department t-shirt and staring at Stiles like if he took his eyes off him for an instant he’d disappear.

Great guilt move, Dad.

Get started before Stiles was even fully awake.

Parenting hack 101, 10 out of 10 should be considered cheating.

“Stiles.”  His Dad was jumping to his feet and rushing over to the bed, hand resting gently on his forehead like he was trying to test his temperature then combed Stiles’s hair back off his forehead.  “Hey kiddo, how’re you feeling?”

“Dad, what?”  Stiles rasped, his throat nearly as dry as it’d been after he’d booted the Nogitsune out of his damn body.  “What’s going on?”

Noah passed over a bottle of Gatorade from the side table, steadying Stiles’s hands when they were too weak to hold it and helped his son drink for several big gulps then setting it aside when Stiles pushed it away.

“You were unconscious for two days.”  Noah told him, worry clear in every line of his craggy face.  “Spiked a fever for eight hours and sweated through a couple sets of sheets and pjs.  Had us worried, kid, no matter what Deaton or Noshiko had to say.”

“Aw man, you asked _Noshiko_?”  Stiles groaned, letting his head thump back against his pillow.  “That must’ve gone over like a fart in church.”

Sitting up with help from his dad, he propped his back against his headboard, noting that true to his dad’s story he wasn’t wearing a shirt despite going to bed in one and he was pretty sure he’d been wearing more than boxers too.  Reaching out he snagged the sports drink and pounded the rest, then tossed the empty in his trash can which he noticed had a couple other empties he didn’t remember putting there.

“Yeah,” Noah said, seeing where Stiles was looking.  “We managed to get fluids down you which was good otherwise Mel and Alan were going to put an IV in.  You’d stumble to the bathroom, drink something if prompted every six hours or so but it was clear nobody was home.”

“Sleepwalking.”  Stiles grimaced.  “Great.  Like I didn’t get enough of that over the last couple of weeks.”

“Alan and Noshiko said it was probably some kinda _healing trance_ because of what you did to your head to fight the Nogitsune.”  Noah told him, shifting uncertainly, still more than a bit off-center when it came to all the _other_ crap that populated his life now.  Like calling a damn _vet_ for medical advice for his spark-kitsune-hybrid son.  “After Mel mentioned something about splitting off your core self and needing to put yourself back together.”

“Always can count on Mama McCall to share medically relevant information no matter how personal.”  Stiles sighed, finding it hard to even be mad at her given the state of his dad.  “Peter did say it was more a war of the mind than the body when they asked him for help with getting the Nogitsune out of me.  At least I got plenty of rest.”

“Nice try, kiddo.”  Noah knew that ploy a bit too well to fall for Stiles’s innocent expression.  “You’re still on light duty and still going to New York to live with your uncle.  No.”  He held up a hand, resolve in every inch of his face shoving aside his former concern over Stiles’s health.  If he was recovered enough to try to manipulate him he was recovered enough to try and fight him.  And when it came to his son’s well-being that just wasn’t going to happen.  Not this time.  “I’m not going to hear it.  Barring living in New York until you graduate high school and are an adult with a diploma being a direct danger to your health, there is literally _no argument_ you could make for staying in Beacon Hills that’s going to trump your overarching well-being.”

“Wow.”  Stiles blinked.  Just _wow_.  “You’re not even going to let me think I have an option here, are you?”

“You said it yourself, Stiles.”  Noah shook his head, blinking back what had to be dust in his eyes.  “Short of _actually_ dying and not just participating in a replacement sacrifice ritual where you were temporarily dead, and rape, you have had some of the worst crimes possible perpetrated against you.  I sure as _hell_ can’t see how New York could possibly be worse than that.”

“Ah,” Stiles choked, pressing his lips together and closing his eyes tight, shaking his head.  “Not that second one.”  He swallowed harshly as his dad sucked in a horrified death.  “Apparently the Nogitsune decided to take advantage of a mentally-compromised Malia Tate while it was in Eichen House.”

Sobs poured from his lips as his dad pulled him forward and into his embrace, burying his head once more against his dad’s chest as he mourned for what was lost – what was taken from him – because of the Nogitsune.

…

Later:

“You know you’re going, right?”

“Yeah, Dad, I got it.  Diploma and adult then I can come back.”

“Glad that’s understood.”

“Dad?”

“Yeah, kiddo?”

“Love you.”

“I love you too, kid.  I love you too.”

…

Phil checked the caller id on his cell before picking up as he watched over the de-icing of a national treasure at SHIELD’s New York City base/office.

“Noah, how is he?”

Given that the last time he spoke to his brother-in-law regarding his nephew Stiles had been unconscious for over twenty-six hours as he recovered from _something_ that SHIELD’s watcher in Beacon Hills _still_ doesn’t have the details of and not long before _that_ news came down they’d discovered that Beacon Hills and the surrounding area had had a spate of murders identical to those that had Nick and most of the intelligence community in a tizzy, he felt it was an appropriate question to lead with.

“He woke up earlier.”

Phil let out a steady – if relieved – breath at that as he continued to listen to the freely-offered information from one of the most reliable, if cagey, resources on his nephew around.

“How was he?”

“Disoriented, confused about why I was worried.”  Noah huffed a short laugh.  “Which cleared right up to cracking wise once I told him how long he’d been out.”

“How long was it?”

“Fifty-one hours and change since we don’t know exactly when his troubled – if normal – sleep turned into unconsciousness.”  His brother-in-law told him mechanically.  “Phil, please tell me your job at an alphabet agency gives you access to a damn good shrink.”

“Why, what happened?”  Phil frowned, turning away from watching over Captain America to focus on his last remaining family.  “And yes, by the way.”

Noah blew out a harsh breath, scrubbing one hand over his face as he stared down at the once-more-asleep form of his son.

“Nothing I feel comfortable telling someone.  If Stiles confides in you that’s great, but I don’t think if I hadn’t caught him at a vulnerable moment he wouldn’t have ever said anything.  I’m not going to betray his trust by repeating it to his uncle, no offense.”

“None taken.”  Phil arched a brow, mind already clicking over what it could be that they already knew that could be throwing Noah off into the deep-end of parental worry or if it was one of those pieces of information that always seemed frustratingly out of reach for his contact.  For a bunch of normally loose-lipped teens, that bunch his nephew ran with could be infuriatingly effected with selective mutism when it suited them.  “Therapy, some self-defense training, online school, all of it is in the process of being sorted out.”

“That’s,” Noah slumped, relieved.  “That’s good.  The online school thing in particular.  God knows Stiles’s been through enough without trying to force him to deal with a new bunch of teenagers on top of it.”

“Other than sending you into a worried-dad spiral, how is he?”

“Was up for a couple hours, ate, got cleaned up then passed back out but it’s a normal sleep not anymore terrifying bouts of random unconsciousness.”

“And the fever?”

“Spiked up to one-oh-three but dropped after that and hasn’t made a come back since he evened back out.”  Noah leaned back in the uncomfortable computer chair he’d almost been living in the last couple of days.  “Mel thinks it was a stress response.”

“Could be.”  Phil had certainly seen similar things before but none of those took into account the supernatural nature of most of what his nephew had been knee-deep in over the last year and some-months.  “And you?  How’re you holding up?”

Noah laughed darkly, looking up and checking on his son for the fifth time in less than a minute.

“Like I’ll manage a lot better as soon as I know my kid is across the country from all the bullshit that’s been dragging him down into the grit and shit and blood ever since he went looking for a dead body in the preserve.”

…

Despite his Dad’s personal wishes and desires, a swathe of murders tying into a national case pulled him back into the department to liaise between the FBI and his deputies.

More or maybe again, Stiles was a little confused over what all had happened with Rafe McCall while he was battling ancient evil inside his mind.

His bad.

The Oni taking out a few assholes like Gerard he’d expected.

Them taking his orders and going global not so much, especially with only five minutes to manage it.

Stiles could see it in his dad’s face, the desire to _ask the question_ , and each time the dad beating back the sheriff and just _not_ given the rundown Stiles and several others had given of the events at the McCall house – and the standoff between him and Noshiko over the Oni.

And while Stiles wasn’t _actually_ guilty of personally committing a crime, he was apparently complicit in dozens of murders whether the dead had deserved it or not.

Though how a DA would spin _summoned and controlled murderously-inclined Japanese demons_ to a jury he didn’t know.

Even if part of him kinda wanted to find out.

Just, you know, for shits and giggles.

He wasn’t on strict bedrest anymore his dad had finally caved on that especially since Stiles with nothing to do but fiddle with his phone and laptop didn’t really end well for _anyone_ when it’s forced and not something he chose to do on his own.

Stiles _needed_ to move and feel his muscles push and flex and pull under his command.

To start integrating knowledge and movements that were instinctual for a kitsune or at least for the Nogitsune, melding memory into muscle memory so when he went to do something – like block a strike from a knife or that impressive little _your taser is mine now_ trick that’d stymied Allison – he didn’t end up flubbing it or injuring himself.

Which reminded him: he _really_ needed to get his hands on a katana and a couple tantos since as his little fight with the Nogitsune had proven _that_ ability had carried over quite well thanks to six months assimilating it in the background while he trolled through the Nogitsune’s other memories.

Memories which were now _his_ , many of which involved pain, strife, and unsurprisingly chaos that he easily dismissed and deleted from his mind palace but there were also a shocking number of memories – as he knew from his memory-trolling – involved in non-evil or violent things such as study or learning various forms of art or other forms of learning.

The more he learned and actualized and came to terms with the non-evil memories of the Nogitsune, the more he realized that they’d gotten off _fucking lucky_ that it’d been driven crazy by seventy years imprisoned under the Nemeton or things would’ve been a _lot_ worse with Stiles’s spark at its disposal.

Not unlike the damage Peter could’ve done if he’d been any _less_ laser-focused and obsessed with tearing the people who killed his family to shreds.

Vendettas.

Hobbling powerful psychos since… _always_ , really.

What was the quote from that dueling assassins movie with creeptastic Bruce Willis?

_“They live for the vendetta.  When they hate it is to the death, it is the same when they love.”_

Stiles wished he could say he couldn’t relate but given the ends he was willing to go to in order to protect those he cared about, those that were _his_ , he really couldn’t judge.

If Baccari had managed to sacrifice his dad as she planned or the Nogitsune targeted the Sheriff, Stiles would have burned the world to the ground to get revenge.

And then maybe taken rule over the ashes, just because he _could_ and there would be no one able or willing to stop him.

It was with those sorts of thoughts churning in his mind as he went through a series of movements designed to teach young swordsmen in Japan – at least when the Nogitsune was young – muscle control and deliberation when a sourwolf climbed through his window.

…

“Hey Sourwolf.”  Stiles held his position for several deliberate breaths then released it and turned to face the former-alpha werewolf.

Speaking of which – what was up with that?

Granted, Derek sacrificed his alphahood to save his sister’s life, but _lame_ that both of the living Hales who’d gained alphahood – however it was accomplished – both lost it even if it made things easier without tensions between Scott’s pack and a defunct Hale pack, though from what he could tell both Derek and Peter were more pack-adjacent than actual pack.

“I’d say sorry about my body slamming your head into a table and then throwing you into a column at your loft.”  Stiles shrugged when Derek just stood and studied him in his patented aura of broody silence.  “But…”

“It wasn’t you so no apology necessary.”  Derek finally cracked his stoic expression, angsty mien lightening.  “Even if it had been I would’ve been impressed at the skill it took since it was better than the rest of McCall’s pack can manage on a given day.”

“Except for Allison.”  Stiles noted, teasingly.  “She’s a badass.”

“That goes without saying.”  Derek agreed easily.  “Perhaps I should say it’s better than the _males_ of the McCall pack can generally manage as the females are all kinda terrifying, especially the human ones.”

“That goes without saying.”  Stiles shot back sassily, grinning and feeling tension just about _melt_ off of him since Derek wasn’t treating him like everyone _else_ around him.  That is like he was delicate and fragile and going to break at the slightest mishandling.

Derek was the first person since he woke up – which was what he was going with for ease of speaking instead of going with a wordier appellation like dis-possessed and then won a mortal-combat throw down with my evil-twin – who’d treated him like _normal_.

Even if there was a distinct lack of growls at the moment, he’d still take it.

“I thought I would check and see if you’re okay.”  Derek answered the unspoken question of what he was doing there.

“I’m…”  Stiles found that contrarily because Derek wasn’t treating him like he was breakable that he actually wanted to talk to him – or at least be honest – instead of reassuring him.  “As good as I can be, I think.”

“Fair.”  Derek arched a brow at the remarkably mature take on his mental state from the teenager.  “When do you leave?”

“You know about that?”  Stiles winced, rubbing one hand over the back of his head.

“In this town?”  Derek snorted, rolling his eyes.  “Stiles: everyone knows about it.”

“That explains the not-at-all-unnecessarily-cryptic and/or creepy text I got from Peter then.”  Stiles decided before shrugging it off.  At least the older Hale was keeping true to form.

“Probably.”  Derek shifted a bit, looking uncomfortable for a split-second before almost-not-quite sighing.  “Look.  I know I’m going to regret this, probably _so so much_ , but if you need anything.  Or someone to talk to…”  He tried to say it but couldn’t.

“I’ll text you.”  He smirked.  “Call if I’m really desperate for someone to annoy.  Cool?”

Derek huffed a laugh.  “Deal.”

“Take care of yourself, Sourwolf.”  Stiles called as Derek ducked back out the still-open window.

“You too, Little Red.”

“Oh, what, _no!_   You asshole you can’t just…and he’s gone.”  Stiles protested, flailed and groused.  “You wait over a year for a guy to lighten up and he finally does as a _last word_ , you’re a magnificent bastard Derek Hale and I won’t forget this!”

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Academic Fraud is a hot-button topic in the States right now with some quite famous people involved and facing heavy fines and jail time for buying scores, admissions, grades, etc.
> 
> Keep in mind that this is fiction but even so in the wake of how much people spent to get their kids into the "right" schools, the amounts Stiles charges for his papers isn't entirely implausible or how much he could bank if he was careful.
> 
> I'm not advocating either buying or selling academic essays/term papers by any means, but it does seem like a racket Stiles could work towards his advantage and have zero compunction of taking advantage of other peoples' stupidity.


	4. Chapter 4

** Fire on Fire **

**Chapter Four:**

**Welcome to SHIELD, Mr. Stilinski**

_JFK International Airport, New York, New York; May 3, 2012_

Phil thought he could be excused his surprise when he caught his first in-person glimpse of his nephew in almost three years.

Sure, he’d stalked-er- _followed_ Stiles’s exploits via Facebook and Instagram like any other invested spy would and read every report on the activities plaguing Beacon Hills religiously as soon as they crossed his desk.  One didn’t need to be a genius like his nephew to realize that the reports were slanted or had holes.  One also didn’t need to be a genius like his nephew to note that in the last year the pictures and updates Stiles shared online were much less spontaneous than in previous years and at times carefully worded around the events of his activity reports or curated to – if Phil was of a suspicious bent – provide a digital footprint that could be used as either evidence or alibi in a court of law or legal inquiry.

Noah might _think_ that Phil was unaware of most of the problems he was desperate to separate Stiles from, but that was the sort of sin of omission on both parts that kept secrets _secret_ and were easily forgivable.

It was clear to Phil that while Stiles _was_ as thin and undernourished as Noah’s upset phone calls reported, that he was likewise recovering.

And moreover: that Stiles wasn’t his little nephew anymore but a man in every way that counted.

It was there in the way he carried himself, how his eyes searched for threats and exit-points, the coiled tension in his limbs, all pointing to a watchful _readiness_ that a boy didn’t have the experience or maturity to possess.

Yet, his nephew obviously did, and in spades.

Stiles’s hair wasn’t kept in a short buzz-cut any longer but allowed to grow in a sculpted “bedhead” look that set off his amber eyes and high cheekbones.  His skin had the look of former-pallor that was in the midst of recovering.  And he was taller and broader than pictures made him look.

No, when Phil was busy off saving the world from one disaster after another, his sister’s son had grown up.

Damnit.

If keeping Nick from recruiting Stiles was going to be hard just from his stats on paper, doing it once Nick noticed the things about his nephew that Phil did was going to be almost impossible; especially since it was on Phil’s idea that Stiles was going to be exposed to the agency in the first place.

Bright amber eyes lit up with energized excitement as they locked on Phil’s slender form in jeans and a button-down, shades hooked and hanging in the neck of the blue shirt, and then his nephew was darting for him in all his cargo-pants and t-shirt clad glory.

Phil had to choke back a laugh when Stiles got close enough for him to read the lettering on the front of the plain black shirt in a deep red: _Underestimate me: that’ll be fun._

Never had truer words been slapped as a warning label on his nephew in his entire life.

Then lanky arms were wrapping around his shoulders and Phil found himself sharing a strong, squeezy hug with the last bit of his sister left and was laughing along with the teenager.

“Little Mieszko,” Phil held the teen out at arm’s length, hands resting on shoulders that were higher in the air than his own.  Lanky was right.  Stiles was two inches taller than his 5’10” at six-foot or he would volunteer for the next - inevitable - round of babysitting Stark.  “Look at you!  You must’ve grown a foot in the last couple of years!”

“Not quite, Uncle Phil.”  Stiles rubbed own hand self-consciously against the back of his head, ruffling his hair a bit in the process.  “And, _really_?”  He whined softly at the use of the diminutive of his actual name.  “Must you?”

Knowing what Stiles was complaining about Phil snickered.

“I don’t run around calling you Uncle Przemysł,” Stiles protested.  “Just because you and Dad are like the only two not-living-in-Poland people who can pronounce my name doesn’t mean you _should_.”

“You can call me Uncle Przemysł if you want to, it’s a good name.”  Phil shrugged nonchalantly as Stiles rolled his eyes and grumbled, hitching the strap of his backup up on his shoulder before following him towards baggage claim for the rest of his stuff.  “And your name _is_ Mieczysław, you know people are going to use it at times now that you’re getting older.”

“It’s a proud name.”  Stiles rattled off by rote, having heard the lecture and variations thereof from his mom and uncle – but never his dad who’d considered slapping him with that name, belonging to the Sheriff’s badass-commando dad or not, something akin to cruel and unusual punishment in the modern era for all that he never fought his mom on it - since the first time cruel little bastards at preschool taunted him over it because their teacher mangled it.  “With a rich history and belonging to one of the original Howling Commandos, feel free to stop me at any point Uncle Phil.”  Stiles sighed, arching a brow at the grin on the older man’s face.  “That doesn’t make it any less of a mouthful even for people growing up speaking a Slavic language let alone America’s youth to twist their tongue around.”

As he finished ranting he spotted his neon-green hard-sided luggage with the radioactive symbol in purple he’d slapped on the front of it, ignoring his uncle’s sigh at the monstrosity, and darted forward to grab it off the belt and tow it behind him thankful for the invention of wheeled personal luggage – even if his uncle grabbed hold of the handle and took possession of the case as soon as Stiles met back up with him, leading him – chatting idly mainly about Phil’s place or how the Sheriff was doing – all the way out to the bright red Corvette that was parked in the LEO reserved spaces just outside the terminal with an alphabet-agency placard Stiles didn’t recognize on the dash keeping it from being towed.

“Lola!”  Stiles cheered as his uncle unlocked the classic car remotely and wedged his case into the trunk while Stiles clambered into the passenger side, keeping his backpack containing his laptop and phone along with a few other essentials safe at his feet.  “She’s looking good, Uncle Phil!”  Stiles chirped, running one hand reverently down the butter-soft leather interior.  “I wish Roscoe still looked this nice.”

He pouted a bit at the inadvertent reminder of having to leave his beloved powder-blue Jeep behind.

Even if Roscoe was much worse for wear between first Claudia and then Stiles and _then_ what seemed like the majority of the supernatural elements in Beacon Hills all putting him through his paces.

“So, Uncle Phil.”  Stiles diverged from idle chatter as his hidden-badass uncle – not unlike his dad but a _lot_ more menacing for all that to Stiles he’d always just been his Uncle Phil – pulled out into traffic and started navigating towards Uptown Manhattan with the top down on Lola and the pair of them wearing sunglasses and enjoying the late spring sun.  “Sorry to, uh, get dumped into your lap like this.  I tried to tell Dad I could recover back home but…”

Phil cut him off at the pass before his nephew could work himself into a state.

“Your dad didn’t dump you on me, Mieszko.”  He explained with the endless font of patience that had saddled him with the likes of handling Hawkeye, Widow, and trying to mitigate the damage of Iron Man then _actual_ aliens.  “You’re family.  All of it I have left.  Keeping you safe and healthy is my _privilege_ not a burden or an inconvenience.  And before you get started on the impact to my job,” Phil arched a knowing brow as his nephew opened his mouth to launch a counterargument.  “I haven’t taken leave since I came to visit over the summer when you turned fourteen, they can survive without me for a week and I was being stationed in New York to oversee our operations here anyway.  You’re _not_ an imposition.”

“Damn, just torpedo all my arguments from the get-go huh.”  Stiles huffed a bit but couldn’t hold onto any form of distemper, grinning brightly over at his uncle for a moment before going back to taking in the New York scenery.  “You and Dad were _so_ raised together.”

“What’s that you kids say?”  Phil played along jokingly.  “Brother from another mother?”

Stiles snickered as his uncle blessed him with one of his little sly grins, and he held up his hands in concession and surrender.

But he had to try at least once.

His stubborn loyalty to his people left behind in Beacon Hills wouldn’t let him do anything else.

They were _his_.

How was he supposed to protect or take care of them if he wasn’t there?

It was the opposite problem his father had run into: how was his dad supposed to protect or take care of _Stiles_ when all the danger was there in Beacon Hills?

“Don’t worry,” Phil didn’t drop his sly _I know something you don’t_ smile for a moment.  “It won’t be all online school and visits to a therapist, Mieszko.  I know you too well to try that and so does your dad.  Noah gave me full discretion over your activities and rules and all the accuctrements surrounding being a guardian of a minor while you’re under my care.”

The two blood-Coulsons shared a mischievous look.

“He might come to regret that.”  Stiles felt his lips forming a wicked grin as his inner trickster yipped and danced.  “Given the givens.”

Phil flat-out laughed at that.

“If he doesn’t, neither of us deserve our reputations, Mieszko.”

…

“Woah woah woah.”

Tony Stark came to a stuttering halt as he watched _something_ in godawful powder blue and rust being unloaded from the back of a semi-trailer into his garage at Stark Tower which while functional was a long way from being completed and at least a year out from the arc reactor coming online.

“Uh, Pep?”  He frowned in confusion at the leggy redhead who was signing off on what had to be a delivery slip for the truck driver, jerking a thumb at the monstrosity now taking up space amongst his babies and various project cars.  “I love a classic as much as the next guy but…what the hell is that?”  He asked his best-friend and the CEO of his company.

Who still was the only person alive who managed to wrangle him on a given day outside of his best-most-brightest-boy JARVIS.

“A favor being called in.”  Pepper nodded politely to the driver as Happy, Tony’s bodyguard-slash-head of security, took over escorting her and her truck out of the building.

“Color me intrigued.”  True to his words, Tony wandered over and started circling the Jeep CJ7 that had to be a good twenty-five years old if not older.  And if the – _yep, that was a bullet hole_ – damage was any sign they were rather active years at that.  Popping the hood he took a look and gave a sympathetic wince at an engine that had never been the best off the line in its later years of production that someone had spent a lot of wrench-time, money, and duct-tape to keep running, estimating the disaster before him at 1979 or 1980 based on the engine model alone.  He whistled, already thinking of the work it'd take to get this beauty back up to show-room floor spec...and _then_ to Tony-Stark-Approved.  “What kind of favor?”

“Cleaning up after Obie.”  Pepper told him, blank-faced as his shoulders stiffened.

“Agent Agent is calling in one of his chits for…?”  Tony arched a brow over his shoulder at Pep, already clambering up and around and all over the Jeep to get an idea of what he was working with.

And thankfully for the blood pressure of both Pepper and his dry cleaner, he was already dressed-down in holey jeans and an AC/DC t-shirt while he was at it since he’d do the exact same thing in Armani if the bug bit him for wrench-time while he was silk-and-linen-clad.

“A total overhaul.”  Pepper said, suppressing a smile at Tony’s irrepressible curiosity and need to touch to figure things out.  When you stripped down Tony Stark to his core, he was nothing as much as he was an engineer and gear-head.  “Roscoe here belongs to his nephew who from what little Phil,”

“Phil, who’s Phil?”  Tony broke in obnoxiously, puzzling over some of the dents and dings that looked like _Roscoe_ had been in more than one major collision and was somehow still chugging anyway.  “His name is _Agent_.”

Ignoring her man-child best-friend and erstwhile former-boss, Pepper rolled her eyes and continued.

“Has had a rough year.  The Jeep belonged to the kid’s late mom, Phil’s sister.”

“Which is why overhaul and not out-and-out replacement, got it.”  Tony leapt out of the driver’s seat, designs and ideas – especially for a better hard-top, maybe something retractable?, yeah that’d be awesome - clicking away and vying for attention.  He puffed out his cheeks, scratching at his morning stubble that he hadn’t gotten around to shaving even though it was four in the afternoon.  “How old’s the kid?”

“Seventeen, sir.”  Jarvis spoke up, already wired into the Tower’s mainframe as he was all of Tony’s residences, communication devices, vehicles, and Iron Man suits.  “One, Mieczysław Noah Stilinski, son of Noah Gavril Stilinski and Claudia Stephanie Stilinski neé Coulson, born on August 1st, 1994 in Beacon Hills, California.”

Tony paused mid-step, recognizing _that_ name as anyone as drilled in the legend of Captain America and the Howling Commandos would.

“Huh.”  Was all he said, blinking, processing, then dismissing that factoid of Agent-Agent’s being in bed with SHIELD for another day.  “Okay.  Jarvis, clear my schedule for the next couple of day.  Daddy has some playing to do.”

“Yes, sir.”

…

Stiles had the first day in New York and then the next to settle into living with his uncle and cozying into his room in the brownstone before Uncle Phil had him up first thing and heading out to his “office” for a reason as yet unspecified.

Damn spy-types.

So implacable it drove him nuts, like dealing with Deaton when the vet was feeling tight lipped and unhelpful.

Uncle Phil had had the second largest bedroom in the brownstone rehabbed from what – at a guess based on the boxes and random crap in one of the other rooms – had been storage before he’d moved in rather than move Stiles into an empty guest room due to the ensuite bathroom the former-storage had attached.

To someone without supernatural senses – and thank _all the things_ that his dad hadn’t shipped him straight off after the Nogitsune because Kira and the puppies had helped him figure out how to use them at least _some_ before leaving, especially how to tone them down – they wouldn’t smell the lingering traces of fresh paint and a new mattress but Stiles did and found himself smiling goofily at the trouble his uncle had gone through to make him welcome.

Even if all it was, in the end, was a coating of storm-grey paint on the bedroom walls, soft mist-grey in the bathroom, and a bedspread, pillowcases, and bathroom accessories all in a bright peacock blue.

The bed though.

_That_ was worth staying in New York and making it work under his dad’s rules alone.

King-sized and just the right balance between fluffy and firm, getting R&R in was _not_ going to be a problem with that as a perk, especially with the wicked-fast wifi his uncle had that was better than any internet connection Stiles had ever used before in his _life_ , even with Danny teaching him a few tricks over the last year how to work his way around a laptop and the dark web if only so Stiles would stop bothering him with (minor, really) hacking needs.

Granted, anything above Stiles’s skill level still had to go through Danny, but fortunately they hadn’t had to deal with _human_ evil in a while so the sweet Hawaiian boy had been free to love up his slightly-murderous former-alpha boyfriend Ethan instead of worrying about getting tapped to track financial records or something.

So when his uncle pulled into the visitor parking of Columbia University, Stiles was more than a little baffled given that he knew damn _well_ that Uncle Phil was an agent of some kind.

“I thought we were going to your office?”

“We are.”  Phil smiled, guiding Stiles from the car and into the admissions office with a gentle hand on his back.  “But first, we have to get a few things regarding your education squared away.”

Phil was visibly pleased at the wide-eyes his nephew shot him at that and the minor flailing that transpired but managed to calm down before they made it to the meeting room and the pair of people waiting on them.

Columbia University was, after all, Stiles’s first-choice school.

He’d have been severely disappointed if he didn’t get at least a surprised squawk about of his nephew but stunning him silent was even better than he’d hoped for.

“How?”  Stiles finally managed to choke out, head whipping around and eyes flicking hither-and-yon as he tried to drink it all in.

“Funny what you can manage when you have recommendations from several legal eagles and a professor or two who were all quite impressed with the fruits of your little _academic assistance_ racket though none of them were aware that that was the purpose behind the papers I forwarded them.”  Phil told him blandly, continuing to lead the way as if his nephew wasn’t staring at him completely gobsmacked.

Then Stiles’s shock wore off and suspicion took over.

“ _Which_ agency do you work for again, Uncle Phil?”

“None that you need to worry about as long as you don’t dabble in anything more than petty crimes and ethical violations.”  Phil retorted, laughing on the inside as Stiles was going to get a concrete answer to the ongoing question soon enough.

Especially when Stiles simply swallowed and nodded in response to that thinly-veiled warning before following him into the meeting room.

“Misters Coulson and Stilinski, I presume.”  A handsome middle-aged woman with ash blonde hair pulled back in a chignon and a simple navy power suit stood at their entrance and shook their hands firmly, appraising Phil’s sharp tailored suit and Stiles’s slim black jeans with a pale blue button down with approval.  “Dr. Malinda Hopkins, Assistant Dean of Admissions for our distance and online learning campus here at Columbia.  This is my associate with our sister online high school, Mr. Thomas Yates.”

“Mr. Coulson,” Yates who wore a simple set of crisp chinos with a white button down and green argyle waistcoat shook their hands just as firmly as his contemporary, nodding in greeting before sitting on one side of the short conference table beside Dr. Hopkins and across from Phil and Stiles.  “Mr. Stilinski.  It’s not often we get such a unique request with equally unique and diverse recommendations, hence this meeting.”

“Uncle Phil?”  Stiles frowned in confusion at the older man, though pieces were starting to fall into place at the words _online high school_.

“The proposal submitted to the University and high school with the backing of the agency supported by your outstanding academic record and test scores, would allow you to self-select and enroll in high school classes at your own pace.”  Phil explained patiently, then nodded towards Yates.  “Which is already standard practice at Mr. Yates’s institution with prior approval from the registrar and administration.”

“Where does Columbia come in?”  Stiles asked, already plotting in his head.  If he finished out his classes from Junior year and didn’t have to take any incompletes, he’d be only one class short of graduation.  And if they were going to let him self-select and self-enroll, well.

His birthday was in August.

“On occasion,” Dr. Hopkins began.  “In the case of truly exceptional students, the university allows challenges to curriculum or a high school student to duel-enroll with our sister school receiving credit on both the university and high school level.  What is suggested in your case is a combination of these allowances for exceptional students with provisional oversight from myself and Mr. Yates during the first quarter of your enrollment which would be the summer quarter beginning next month.”

“Challenge the curriculum?”  Stiles pursed his lips in thought.  “You mean like the CLEP exams?”

“Not normally, no.”  She told him honestly.  “The University doesn’t, in the normal course of events, partner with the College Board to accept the CLEP exams as substitutes for course work.  Which is why we,” she motioned to the adults.  “Thought a meeting was prudent rather than present you with a fait accompli.”  A shadow of a smile twitched at the corner of her mouth.  “Rarely, in my experience, does a student with your _interesting_ combination of academic excellence and, ahem, occasional behavioral issues take well to having decisions made on your behalf.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at her in consideration.  “Your Ph.D. is in Educational Psychology isn’t it?”

“Developmental, actually.”  A real smile bloomed over her face, showing off crows’ feet in the corner of her eyes.  “But close.”

“How would it work?”  Stiles asked.  “Challenging the courses?  Would I get to take a walk through the course catalog and pick then take a final or…?”

“For some classes that would work.”  Yates nodded.  “However, others have a final project or term paper requirement as well which would have to be completed and submitted for grading or approval by the course professor.”

“I want to finish out my current high school classes.”  Stiles told them all, tone strict.  “Can I take whatever final exam your school has for my current course load and then after I complete my first course challenge receive my diploma instead of having to wait until _next_ June to graduate?”

Phil smirked, shaking his head.

His nephew really was a clever little shit, already thinking around corners and ultimatums alike.

Good thing that Phil was a tactician himself and planned for that when he made the proposal to the University.

Noah wanted Stiles away from Beacon Hills and the deeper he looked into the place and the trauma he saw in his nephew’s eyes, the harder Phil worked to make that happen, the agreement between father and son bedamned.

“We can do that.”  Yates assured him.  “It’s one of the perks of the flexibility of online classes.”

“Well, Stiles?”  Phil prompted when it seemed like Stiles had asked the only real pertinent question on his mind – a side-effect of blindsiding him instead of giving the brat time to build up a head of steam and a hundred questions beforehand.  “What do you think?”

“I think,” he shot a rueful glance at his uncle.  “That you’re a cheating cheater who cheats.  Uncle Phil: _how could I say no to that_.”  He flailed his hands helplessly towards the admissions officers from the partnered schools.  “ _You don’t play fair, old man.”_

It said something about Stiles’s level of befuddled excitement that he slipped into Polish without knowing it, leaving his uncle to translate.

Phil looked over at the bemused school officials.

“He’s so excited he lost his English a minute.”  He confided, leaning forward with a smile.  “Give him another and he’ll have _all_ sorts of questions about the logistics of our little venture.”

…

“Okay, are we _really_ going to your work now?”  Stiles asked suspiciously as he slid into Lola’s passenger seat with a handful of admissions paperwork including the course catalog for both schools, the proper website and credentials to use it including his student id, and more.  “Or is there a new cheating-cheater plan on the horizon?”

“Oh, my sweet Mieszko.”  Phil laughed as he started up the Corvette’s engine with a purring roar.  “Silly thing, efficiency demands that it’s both at once of course.”

“Of course.”  Stiles laughed helplessly, firmly caught in his uncles clutches and not even mad about it – at the moment at least – plopping back against Lola’s leather bench seat back.  “What else was I expecting?”

“You know, I really don’t know.”  Phil smirked.  “It’s like you don’t know me _at all_.”

“That’s it.”  Stiles decided.  “You’ve gone darkside in the last three years.  You’re clearly evil and must be destroyed.”

“Before or after I ply you with curly fries and information?”  Phil asked innocently.

A raspberry – the only mature, collected response to such clear bribery to overlook his evil-overload-scheming-tendencies – was the only answer he got from his teenaged companion.

…

Stiles arched a brow at the plain, ordinary office building in Midtown that his uncle pulled into the parking garage of, waiting for the other shoe to drop right up until Phil swiped a keycard at an elevator and clipped id badges to both himself and Stiles then the elevator doors slid open revealing an interior far too high-tech for the plain building surrounding it and a large emblem on the rear wall of the lift that Stiles had only heard spoken of in half-whispers on the dark web.

“SHIELD?”  He turned looked down at his uncle in fond exasperation.  “You work for _SHIELD_?”

“Heard of us often in sleepy Beacon Hills, Mieszko?”  Phil met his eyes with bland _knowing_ that had Stiles shuffling a bit in place and looking away.  “Mhmm.”  Phil hummed, laughter dancing in his tone.  “Your friend Mister Mahealani is good, kid, but not _that_ good.  He’s on our watchlist depending on which direction he intends to take his skills.”

Which up until the boy got involved with _Phil’s_ boy had looked like the straight and narrow.

Though if Mahealani _did_ waver more to the good of SHIELD since rarely did white-hat hackers end up working for the shadowiest of alphabet agencies.

Still, with Stiles out of the equation they’d see what the hacker did with his talents once he hits MIT where he already had a full-ride through the prestigious university ready and waiting for him.

“Ok,” Stiles recalibrated with _that_ piece of his uncle’s life after he left the Rangers slotting into place.  And making a lot of damn sense since from what he’d been able to dig up about the agency in between research binges on whatever the monster of the week was in Beacon Hills or the bigger bads, SHIELD was like the clean-up crew and information-gathering agency for everything _other_ or _super_ roaming the world.  With Tony Stark decamping to New York while he got his Tower built and green, they’d probably need someone around to keep an eye on him as the most-visible superhero in the world.  “The information part I get.”  Stiles waved a hand at the emblem as the elevator ran smoothly upward until it came to a stop.  “But I’m getting a distinct _lack_ of curly fries vibe from your employer, Uncle Phil.”

Which naturally, was when the doors to the elevator opened and the closest person – some dude in a sleeveless black uniform who had biceps that would make maybe even Derek jealous – almost ran into a wall.

“ _Uncle_ Phil?”  The guy – _agent_ , Stiles guessed – echoed, shock clear on his face.

And maybe a little bit of _hurt_ but Stiles wasn’t about to get involved in that, nope, nothing to see there.

“Who is running behind and due for a meeting with the Director, Agent Barton.”  Phil held in a wince – since both his nephew and Clint _see all_ – and pressed forward, signing quickly behind Stiles’s back that he’d talk to Clint later.  “As you should be on the firing range or gym at this hour.”

“Yes, sir.”  Clint grumbled, eyes narrowed at the pair and already plotting to get Natasha on the case of the mysterious appearing nephew as soon as he found her downstairs.

His disbelief could be understood.

Neither of them looked a damn thing alike, let alone that they were related.

But then Clint didn’t know shit about families.

Adjusting one of his hearing aids that were designed to pass as simple comm-units, Clint caught the elevator before it could be called away and went in search of his partner in crime.

There were secrets afoot that needed unearthing.

_Especially_ since whoever the so-called _nephew_ was, he was heading straight from Phil’s care into a meeting with Fury.

Which put him way farther up the food chain than a simple relation would account for, at least with the meeting occurring within the environs of a SHIELD office.

…

“Mr. Stilinski,” the man with a resonating voice, eye-patch, and a shiny leather duster that would probably look pretentious as _fuck_ on anyone else greeted him in a combination that Stiles’s well-honed bullshit-sensor combined with the preternatural abilities – and experience – of a thousand year old dark spirit read as half interest, forty-percent caution, and ten-percent warmth due to his relationship to his uncle Phil.  “Welcome to SHIELD.”

One cocoa-skinned hand gestured to the seat opposite what Stiles was pretty certain was actually his uncle’s desk as said-uncle rounded the edge of the desk and moved to stand almost at parade-rest just off leather-pirate’s left side.

Maybe it was over a year of hanging with wolves who had a _very_ few specific pack positions, but he couldn’t help but cock his head and arch a brow at his uncle when the implications of _that_ ran through his head.

His uncle was the left-hand of who even as this all traipsed through Stiles’s head at lightening-speed, was introducing himself as the one and only Director Nick Fury of SHIELD.

The spy of spies.

A man whose secrets had secrets of their own.

Interesting.

And now Director Fury was getting to the point of this little meeting which – again, bullshit-sensors and a thousand years – Stiles had a feeling was way more involved than a weird form of bring-your-child-to-work-day.

“…SHIELD keeps an eye on the possible pressure points and weaknesses of our agents, particularly those of high rank who have access to the most sensitive of our agency’s information.”  Nick continued with his spiel, good eye keeping track of every flicker of expression on his assistant director’s nephew’s face.  Which for who was supposedly a notoriously-expressive person, wasn’t much at all.  “However, certain places also require monitoring, of which Beacon Hills, California is most definitely on a list.  Events there over the last eighteen months have caught our attention, though the reports we have retained have a few, shall we say, _gaps_.”

“What makes you think I can fill those in for you?”  Stiles stared straight back at Fury, dragging his attention away from studying his uncle.  “I’m just a teenager.”

“Come now, Mr. Stilinski.”  Nick scoffed, kinda liking the kid even if he shouldn’t.  “Don’t be coy.  According to our sources, you know _quite_ a bit about the happenings in Beacon Hills that SHIELD might be interested in, involved at least peripherally if not centrally in most if not all of them over the last year and a half.”

“Even if I was, if I had the information you want.”  Stiles didn’t so much as _breathe_ let alone twitch.

Which little did he know, had his uncle worried on a whole other _level_ than anything he’d read in a dossier or heard from Noah.

“Why _would_ I share it, if I’m as involved as you believe?”

“Consider it a job interview.”  Fury eyed him sharply.  Clever little bastard.  “SHIELD has a project that your uncle believes you’d be inordinately suited for.  An internship if you will.  This is the audition.”

“Again,” Stiles raised his brows.  “ _Why_ would I want to share what I know about Beacon Hills, especially with an agency with a reputation for black-bag operations?  How do I know that anything I give you won’t end in some poor bastard back home getting bagged-and-tagged and sent to rot in some hole in bumfuck Alaska or wherever you dump your inconveniences to rot?”  Stiles’s smile was sharp as a knife and not at all friendly.  “No offence, I get that my uncle works for you, that _he_ believes in whatever SHIELD’s mission is supposed to be, but I don’t know you.  I sure as _shit_ don’t trust you.”

Fury barked a laugh, tossing a folder onto the desk for Stiles to pick up and review – which he did at a nod from his uncle.

“I like you kid.”  Fury grinned.  “The internship offer is real.  SHIELD will pay your college tuition at Columbia as long as you work on a project for us the details of which you’ll be provided with once you sign on and sign a hefty non-disclosure agreement.  As for the Beacon Hills file, it’s a separate issue from the internship.  No names if you don’t want to share them, but a bit of clarification on some points would be appreciated.”

Since the file in question was already in Stiles’s hands, he quickly saw what the director meant – and had a damn good idea of where they were getting their intel.

“How about double or nothing?”  Stiles offered, hiding the glee and spite dancing in his eyes – because uncle or not, ambushes are _not okay_ – a half-smile curving up one side of his mouth as he held up the dossier in his hands.  “I tell you who your operative is in Beacon Hills and not only do you pay for my tuition regardless of whether I take the internship or not, but you also _tell me_ what the job is before I sign anything, let alone an NDA.  If I’m wrong, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know about Beacon Hills and the happenings over the last six months.”

Nick turned a bit, giving his good-eye a _is your kid for real_ look then turned back, nodding in bemused agreement.

“Your operative is Chris Argent.”  He tossed the file on the desk.  “And your file has holes you could pilot a jet through because he’s a hunter, one with a code but a hunter regardless, and the activities of his organization have been heavily redacted if not left out _altogether_ to keep them off your radar.”

It also has a few omissions to protect those underage but what SHIELD didn’t know wouldn’t lead to his friends bagged-and-tagged, so, you know there’s that.

But given that Argent had been complicit in the kidnapping and torture of three teenagers – including Stiles – and had advocated for putting a bullet in his head not even two weeks ago, he felt _zero_ remorse and more than a little vengeful spite at screwing the bastard over to the employer he’d been apparently fucking over.

If his inner trickster reveled in it a bit more than was appropriate considering the truce between Argent and Scott, well, Stiles had never been one to deny that he was a petty asshole when the mood struck him.

And it was _Scott’s_ alliance with the hunters, not Stiles’s, and he’d still almost taken a bullet to the brain because of it.

Sighing, Nick rather ponderously reached for his wallet and thumbed out a twenty-dollar bill, passing it to his good eye with a put-upon expression, then handed Stilinski another file.

“You can’t make him a fully-vested agent until he’s eighteen.”  Phil headed off the job offer – a real job offer not just an internship – that was certain to roll off of Nick’s tongue.  “Or promote him higher than Level Three during his internship.”

“I haven’t said yes yet, Uncle Phil.”  Stiles pointed out drily, opening up the folder and his eyes popping wide approximately a second later once he saw the picture on the first page.

“Yeah,” Phil sighed, crossing his arms.  “I didn’t react much better when Nick told me.”

“Our teams found him off the coast of Greenland.”  Fury rattled off as Stiles stared goggle-eyed at the picture of a comatose Captain Steven Grant Rogers in all his super-solider glory in a SHIELD hospital bed.  “And I still want that information Argent left out of his reports,” he added in an aside, Stiles waving him off absently as he flipped through the dossier on the found and very-much-alive Captain America.  “From what our doctors have ascertained the freezing cold combined with the serum kept him in a cryogenic state.  Before he could fully _thaw out_ as it were, we started double-dosing him on drugs to keep him unconscious while we figured out his state of health and put together a plan for introducing him to the twenty-first century.”

“So…”  Stiles frowned, processing the information in the dossier about Cpt. America’s state, including speculation regarding what his mental state might be like waking up seventy years in the future.  Instead of, you know, _dead_.  “Where do I come in?”

“Captain Rogers is going to need a dedicated handler to guide him around the future.”  Phil stepped in here since it was his plan anyway, Stiles’s whiskey eyes focusing on him with all the laser-like focus he was infamous for when something caught his attention.  “Someone who won’t be awed by him and his reputation but will have a certain amount of empathy for the uphill battle he’s going to be facing.  The Captain represents the first real superhero as far as things go, we might have a few more kicking around now than we did in the forties but he’s still an icon to a lot of people.”

“Can’t have the ultimate symbol of patriotism going off the rails.”  Stiles summed up, mouth taking on a bitter twist.  “Bad for the hero business.”

“Something like that.”  Fury nodded.  “He’s also someone that despite all attempts has never been recreated.  Every shadow agency in the world is going to want to get a hand on him to try and recreate Erskine’s formula.  They’ve never stopped in the last seventy years and having him _alive_?”  Fury shook his head.  “We’re going to need him in fighting fit for his own sake if nothing else.”

“And to take on missions that might kill someone who doesn’t have super-strength and healing.”  Stiles rolled his eyes.  He knew how much _that_ meant at the end of the day.  Fury could talk the good talk all he wanted but at the end of the day Rogers was an asset just like everyone else.

A valuable one, maybe.

But an asset like anything and anyone else.

And at the moment he wasn’t awake and didn’t have the personal agency to at least _try_ and dictate how and where he was used, which at the end of the day, was untenable to Stiles.

It struck a little too close to home.

Maybe it wasn’t the reason his uncle and dude’s boss had counted on to get him to sign the fuck up, but hey, it worked anyway.

Stiles sighed, scrubbing one hand over the back of his head in frustration then tossed the files he was still holding loosely in his other hand onto the desk.

“You said something about some paperwork to get this - _terrible, really_ , you’re going to trust _me_ with Captain frigging America? – show on the road?”

“Welcome to SHIELD, Mr. Stilinski.”  Nick repeated himself, handing over a stack of paperwork and a pen before disappearing to let Phil finish reading in his nephew.

He had a hundred different fires that needed tending or putting out and his good eye could manage the situation in New York from here.

One of those fires was, apparently, finding out just _what_ his operative in Beacon Hills was hiding.

And why.

At least, above and beyond what Stilinski was going to provide regarding the matter.

And what Argent had done to piss the kid off.

Nick worked with the Black Widow.

He knew gleeful spite when he saw it, the kid wasn’t _that_ good at hiding his intentions from trained spies.

Just better than most.


	5. Chapter 5

** Fire on Fire **

**Chapter Five:**

**The Talking Cure**

Step One, apparently, after signing away what could very well be his first child, lifeblood, and kidneys in a metric-ton of paperwork and getting scanned into the SHIELD system to marry his biometrics to a profile that his uncle and the director already had set-up, was a battery of physical and mental-health exams.

Yay.

Just how Stiles wanted to spend the day: getting poked and prodded in all his tender places both gaping open, still-healing, and scarred over.

At least other than the issue of his recent weight loss there was nothing to complain about as far as his physical state for all that the sight of him stripped down to his boxers for the SHIELD medics to record his scars – they already had his medical files from Beacon Hills, somehow _all_ of them including the paper-only one Deaton get on all of the pack after patching them up off-the-record – and match up scars against reported injuries and ruthlessly quizzing him about any, both scars and injuries, that didn’t have accompanying records.

Damn, and he thought _Mel_ was dogged when it came to their health.

She had _nothing_ on the viciously-implacable expressions the SHIELD medics and doctors had down to a science that had Stiles spilling all of the missing information from his medical files even if he was light on details regarding _how_ some of the injuries were acquired as his uncle watched and visibly-seethed.

If Stiles were Chris Argent, he’d be worrying for his ass right about now because if the storm gathering in his uncle’s eyes was any sign, the assistant director had some very _pointed_ questions for him.

 _Especially_ since the worst of the marks on his body, barring the evisceration scar, were all from Argent’s father.

 _And_ that Argent knew that, knew his old man had tortured him, and not said _one goddamn word_ to anyone about it, especially since he was the only person other than Noah in the entire _fucking town_ that knew Stiles was Phil’s nephew.

Oh yes.

Nick might get to Argent first, Phil being trapped – effectively – in New York between Rogers and his nephew, but a reckoning _was_ coming.

Right after he sent Natasha to infiltrate a nursing home in High Valley, two towns away from Beacon Hills, and where the dossier on Gerard Argent that SHIELD kept on their operative’s family that Phil brought up on the tablet he was using to make notes regarding what Stiles had to say and answer some emails while he was around anyway, said Argent had been stashed by his son within _days_ after Stiles had been tortured.

 Call it petty, but the very _idea_ that the man who’d tortured children for shits-and-giggles, let alone one of them being his nephew, was _still drawing air_ , offended him.

Natasha would be _more_ than willing to take care of that little problem and make it look natural since she despised child-abusers as much if not _more_ than Phil.

Well, that _was_ the plan anyway.

Right up until his putting together the mission orders ran into a police report regarding the _beheading_ of one Gerard Argent while he was alone in his room in said-nursing home.

Huh.

He blinked then started a state-wide search of California’s police databases for more cases with the cause of death being beheading on the same April day as the assassinations of the likes of Alexander Pierce and Brock Rumlow.

And hit _pay dirt_ , immediately forwarding the results to Nick’s secured tablet as well as the team-leader who was investigating the assassinations.

It seemed that the deaths – as scattered and random on the surface as they’d seemed to SHIELD analysts – had been much _less_ random when it came to a cluster in and around Beacon Hills, California.

On the _same day_ that his brother-in-law called to get his nephew the hell out of dodge.

Now, what, he wondered, could the events that scared his hard-as-nails best-friend into shuttling Stiles across the country to keep him out of danger have to do with a string of seemingly-simultaneous assassinations…and _why_ were so many of them centered in and around a small town in California, supernatural hotspot or not?

Somehow he had a feeling that getting a truthful and moreover _comprehensive_ answer to that question would be the key to so many things bothering him about both his nephew and the assassination case.

Still.

Stiles was wary, on guard, especially after Phil had successfully countered his nascent plans twice in a row.

Launching an offensive to get that answer would have to wait until Stiles had settled a bit more and lowered both his hackles and his guard.

Baby steps.

Phil wasn’t the best handler in the business for nothing.

And if he wasn’t mistaken, his boss had selected Stiles as his protégé and eventually successor, even if his burgeoning abilities pointed more towards a field agent than anything else.

They’d see.

Stiles was young, there was still plenty of time for him to decide what to do with himself.

As long as it didn’t lead to any more scars shouting _evisceration_ , Phil would be satisfied with whatever path his nephew eventually took.

Especially since the inevitable verbal-sparring matches between Stiles and Nick were sure to be worth their weight in _gold_.

…

“What’s next?”  Stiles asked as he walked with his uncle through the New York SHIELD base since apparently his uncle wasn’t “on the clock” as much as hanging around for Stiles’s benefit and acting as escort for the day.

“Other than your psych eval?”  Phil arched a brow reading the _please don’t ask_ regarding his scars and wounds – including more than a few broken bones from the full-body x-ray – written all over his nephew’s face.

Stiles made a face at that.  Well, he couldn’t say he didn’t know it was coming.  Among other nuggets of information packed into the stack of paperwork he’d had to slog through was the bit about having to pass physical and psych exams before passing onto the next stage of exams let alone getting access to training or information.

Even _if_ he hadn’t taken the job offer – which they all knew damn well he was going to take the assholes – his Dad had made it crystal clear that seeing a shrink wasn’t up for debate.

Here’s hoping that the SHIELD shrinks were more useful than Morrell had been – or at least not working an agenda completely contrary to actually helping him out.

“Yeah, other than _that_ batch of happy-fun-times I can’t _wait_ to get through to find out just how fucked up I am.”  Stiles snorted, rolling his eyes at his uncle’s exasperated expression.  “What’re you going to be doing while my no-doubt-fascinating collection of pedestrian neuroses are prodded at by a Ph.D.?”

“Observing.”  Phil told him honestly, then explained at the flat-out- _horrified_ look that got him.  “There’s two-way glass in the office you’ll be using but it’s not wired for video or sound.  It’s as confidential as these things _can_ be in an agency like SHIELD.  Only recommendations will be made available to myself and the Director.  You’re still protected as much as possible by our relation so no one else will ever get access to your files without your – or our – approval.”

Stiles held in a sigh.

There’s that at least he supposed.

Score one for SHIELD over the FBI, at least the shadowy guys believed in secrecy.

It wasn’t really helping his paranoia but hey, you win some you lose some.

“Once you’re cleared by medical for training you’ll have exams in hand-to-hand and weapons combat, firearms, and the training course to identify baselines for training and fitness qualifying exams going forward.”

“They’re not standardized?”  Stiles perked up at that.

“No point.”  Phil told him bluntly.  “Our operative, agents, and analysts all have a variety of skills and abilities.  The director – and I – believe in utilizing them to the _best_ of those skills and abilities which includes keeping them as sharp and well-trained as possible.  Holding the Director to the same standard as Agent Barton would be ludicrous and not a good evaluation of _either’s_ personal skill sets.”

“Oh, I’m not disagreeing.”  Stiles smiled, genuinely stoked at the opportunity that left him with.  That gave him a metric _ton_ of leeway in just how he performed since he didn’t have to freak out over meeting an arbitrary standard.  Something to think about as he got up to fighting-fit, the medics being quite clear that he still had about twenty pounds to go in putting weight back on before they’d clear him.  “I think it’s awesome and wish more places thought that way.”

Some of the weight he’d dropped could be put back on in muscle and apparently a big part of the SHIELD-intern package was access to their facilities and training.

He couldn’t join up with anything _officially_ until he was cleared but nothing was said about using the training floors anyway while he waited.

People _really_ shouldn’t give him those kinds of loopholes.

Oh well.

The medics would learn soon enough he was sure.

Mel, Deaton, and his Dad sure as shit had over the years.

…

Phil had gotten his nephew situated and had been splitting his attention between his tablet and the tableau in Dr. Gothenburg’s office for all of five minutes when the observation room – where he was posted up in a comfortable arm chair with a thermos of green tea from the cafeteria at his elbow – was officially invaded.

Took them long enough, he was _almost_ disappointed.

He and Stiles had gotten side-eyed _hard_ when they’d ventured into said-cafeteria for lunch, no curly fries to be found much to Stiles’s dismay though that would be remedied once Stiles was done for the day, as it wasn’t often at all that SHIELD recruited so young let alone after a face-to-face with the director before being squired around by Coulson himself.

“So, Uncle Phil.”  The hurt and upset was plain in Clint’s voice as he dropped from a vent behind Phil’s chair onto the floor in a crouch, Natasha entering silently from the doorway.  “What the _hell_ is that about, babe?”

Phil couldn’t blame him for being upset.

As his handler and the agent to originally pull in Clint to SHIELD, he knew everything there _was_ to know about Clint, his agent at work and his boyfriend at home for over a year now.

Still there was a very distinct _difference_ between Clint’s situation and Phil’s own.

Mainly, one of leverage.

“I’m the Assistant Director of SHIELD over Operations, Agent Barton.”  He said drily, giving him the agency line before getting into the personal one.  “There’s all sorts of information about me and my background that only the Director is privy to.”

“Okay,” Clint bought that easily enough as he moved over to half-sit on the arm of Phil’s chair, half-smiling despite himself when Phil wrapped an arm around his hip and the three of them watched the expressions flashing across Phil’s nephew’s – _nephew’s_ face – flicking from bland to mulish to obstinant and back in an ever-revolving set before the kid got a read on Gothenburg, who tended to the top tier of agents and operatives – the ones most likely to end up with severe psychological trauma and/or damage.  Smart kid.  Perceptive too.

Just like Phil.

“What’s the other part of it?”  Clint asked as Nat came up to stand on Phil’s left, the pair of them effectively flanking the older man as they often did both in the field and during briefings.

“In the early years I did everything possible to bury any connection I had to my sister and her husband, then doubled-down when Stiles was born.”  Phil sighed, allowing his head to fall to the side and rest against Clint’s bare arm for a moment before straightening.  “I’ve never been more afraid of _anything_ than that some asshole would target them because of me once Director Carter explained the watch SHIELD _still_ kept on the descendants of the Howling Commandos and everyone related – even peripherally – to the SSR.  I never expected that it was Noah taking a job as a deputy in NoCal and moving Claudia there would be what put Stiles in danger.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?”

“Yes.”  Phil told him without a single shred of hesitation.  “Of course I was.  I simply wanted a chance to introduce you in person rather than have my last remnants of family be some idea hanging out in Beacon Hills and neither of us has been able to take a vacation since we’ve gotten together.  I didn’t expect that things would blow up there in such spectacular fashion that would have Noah getting Stiles away from there and thinking him safer under my care than his own.”

“Gonna introduce us now?”  Clint asked the only real _pertinent_ question at this point as he read the kid’s lips.  Damn.  He didn’t pull punches.  And some of that shit was _heavy_ even for an agent.

He could see why Phil was wound tight with worry over the kid.

“’Course I am.”  Phil scoffed rolling his eyes at the absurdity of the question.  “He’s going to be all exposed wire and snark after he gets out of there.  Tomorrow night?  Dinner?”

“Done.”

“What’s your read, Natasha?”  Phil asked without turning his attention away from watching his nephew to ask the up-til-then silent Black Widow.

“That he’s like us.”  She said without a shadow of doubt, tilting her head to indicate Phil along with herself rather than Clint.  “More secrets than revelations.  Whatever _really_ happened to him, he’s better at hiding the heart of it than Director Fury is going to be happy with.”

“That’s not surprising.”  Phil shook his head then repeated what Stiles had said regarding Argent’s playing with his reports and the holes he flat-out told them they contain.  “That said, it doesn’t mean Stiles isn’t going to tilt things just as much in his own direction as Argent has done.”

“The truth likely will lay in between the two as it often does.”  Natasha allowed, then narrowed her eyes a bit as she pulled up a few camera feeds from earlier as this _Stiles_ moved through the base and compared them to the boy sitting opposite a shrink.  “And he’s stronger than he should be.  Faster too.”

“How can you tell?”  Phil asked, more out of curiosity than any sense of doubt.

“I grew up around enhanced humans, Agent Coulson.”  She reminded him drily.  “I’m familiar with what it looks like when someone is constantly splitting their focus to keep from crushing something in their hand or walking or moving faster than they should.  Something happened to him above and beyond simple trauma.”

“We’ll figure it out Phil.”  Clint reassured him, squeezing the hand on his hip firmly.  “We always do.”

“In this case,” Phil’s face was dark with worry.  “That’s not as helpful as normal.  It’s not a mark or a target this time: it’s my nephew.”

“We know.”  Natasha looked down at the seated men.  “That’s why when we _do_ find out what truth is, it’ll stay between us.”

…

Stiles was sipping on a bottle of water as he waited for his uncle to join him and the shrink, Dr. Gothenburg, for his eval results.

The doc was good, Stiles would give him that.

He’d had to do a pretty verbal dance more than once around the truth of things to avoid setting off his bullshit-o-meter – which being a shrink and diagnostician working for SHIELD had to be formidable – but not revealing anything SHIELD didn’t already know.

Which thanks to Director Fury, Stiles had a decent idea of just _what_ SHIELD did and didn’t know.

Uncle Phil had assured him before sending Stiles in for his eval that the doc had clearance to hear anything Stiles had to say, so he hadn’t had to dance around the werewolf/hunter war but there’d been nothing about Stiles being the Nogitsune or the realities of magic, the Darach passed off as a wicca with delusions of grandeur in Argent’s reports.

And it was in his best interest to keep it that way.

Telling the doc that playing with him had been the Nogitsune’s favorite pastime was one thing.

Admitting that he’d been possessed by the damn thing before killing it and absorbing its powers was another.

Though he had no compunction about admitting to the kill.

Given everything he’d gone through that was a big damn piece of the puzzle that the shrink likely needed.

However there _were_ other facts he’d had to avoid or color a bit outside the lines on.

Like the _exact_ events surrounding Peter’s death and resurrection for one.

Or Lydia being a Banshee for two.

Omissions great and small that Argent had used to keep SHIELD from taking _too_ hard of a look at Beacon Hills, like covering up for hunter activities but not that his father had been a hunter along with his sister.

Some of what Argent had left out made no sense to Stiles but then Argent and the bigots like him never _had_ made sense to him from the get-go so what did he know?

That he couldn’t completely understand or predict the crazy pricks wasn’t a _bad_ thing by every measure.

Because, as Peter and Kate had both proven in technicolor 3D, _crazy_ wasn’t, by its very nature, predictable by the sane.

Stiles felt a certain amount of comfort in the fact that he was fucked up, yes, but not _that_ far gone – yet – that he understood the way the minds of the likes of Kate and Peter worked.

At least Peter pre-zombie.

Post-zombie was actually operating on a wave-length Stiles could dial into most of the time which was awesome when it worked in his favor – re: finding Noshiko’s tail where he influenced the Nogitsune to hide it – and _terrifying_ when he looked at it objectively.

In the end he supposed there were worse things while being scouted by an intelligence agency than understanding the tricksy ways of Peter Hale.

He could be turning into Alan Deaton, a thought that almost made him break out in hives at the very thought.

Bless Uncle Phil’s timing, entering the room before Stiles could _completely_ mentally flip his shit over _that_ idea.

Ick.

He didn’t have the placid voice and chill demeanor to carry off cryptic and maddeningly unhelpful.

“What’s the verdict, doc?”  Stiles asked as his uncle sat in the free chair beside him in the bland tan painted room with medium-blue furnishings and drapes.

It was like someone took a picture of a generic shrink’s office out of a before ad for anti-depressant medication and copied it over – except, of course, for the big-ass two-way observation mirror on the far wall.

“For someone who has received no treatment for your PTSD and peripheral issues,” Dr. Robert Gothenburg said drily, signing his electronic report with a flourish before submitting it that had an alert on A.D. Coulson’s tablet pinging.  “You’re remarkably self-aware and as well-adjusted as can be expected.”

“Hey, I received treatment.”  Stiles smirked, having seen the _look_ the good doctor with his steel-grey hair and even steelier blue eyes had gotten when the subject of Eichen House and Marin Morrell had come up.

Though, he’d gotten that look quite a bit over the hours he and Stiles had been talking for the doc to get a comprehensive overview of Stiles’s issues and whether he could be cleared for his “internship.”

 _Hours_.

Talking about shit he’d rather forget ever existed let alone have in-depth discussions about.

And this was only their first session if he knew _anything_ about reading body language and facial expressions.

Yay.

He shrugged at the _look_ both the doctor and his uncle gave him then added:

“It was just shitty treatment with an agenda that ninety-nine percent of the time was contrary to actually _helping_ me.”

“Which may have done more harm than good.”  Robert snorted, already having plans to lodge _serious_ complaints with the California ethics board or what amounted to the same over this _Marin Morrell_ and her shoddy and deeply disturbing ethical violations regarding this young man’s care.  “Any mental health professional worth their license knows that early diagnosis and proper treatment is vital to eventual lessening or absence of symptoms of PTSD.  As it is one in three patients with the disorder will have symptoms throughout their lives.  Ms. Morrell’s actions have likely compounded the likelihood that you will fall into that thirty-three percent, Mr. Stilinski.”

“Yeah, I kinda figured.”  Stiles’s half-smile was bitter.  “What do I get to look forward to?  Can I be cleared for my internship?”

“Probationally, yes.”  Robert sighed, catching the _look_ from A.D. Coulson over his nephew’s head.  “No two cases of mental health disorders are the same.  You may present only the issues you’re already aware of,”

“Hypervigilance, paranoia, nightmares, night terrors.”  Stiles rattled off, having no issue sharing the specifics that patient confidentiality kept the doc from sharing in front of his uncle.  “I still have panic attacks from my anxiety disorder so not sure if that’s the PTSD or the other.”

“Yes,” Robert nodded, face set in firm lines.  “There are complicating issues as well in Mr. Stilinski’s case such as his preexisting ADHD and anxiety disorder.  Many agents I’ve worked with over the years who experience PTSD rarely have the more severe symptoms in the field when they’re prepared for disaster but at home when they’re safe.  You both will have to be vigilant and prepared to note new symptoms or increase in frequency or severity of existing symptoms.  In a perfect world we’d strive for a cure.  In reality I’d be satisfied with the night terrors being successfully managed and the paranoia dialed down to reasonable suspicion along with the hypervigilance.”

“Measures?”  Phil asked after giving himself and Stiles a minute to process that.  Robert never _had_ been one for sugar-coating things, likely why he dealt so well with the more difficult hard-cases in the agency.  In that, Stiles wouldn’t be unique at all.

That Robert was also ear-marked for handling Captain Roger’s case and care would only help in the long run as Stiles got used to working with him as both his therapist _and_ as a teammate.

“Noted in his file, the highlights of which are twice weekly appointments at first.”  Robert told them, having also sent an email with Stilinski’s care plan to the young man’s SHIELD email.  “Along with cognitive behavior assignments in between.  You are sure you’d like to proceed without medication?”  He checked for the third time with Stilinski, who nodded firmly.

“I’d rather not compound anymore side-effects.”  Stiles said, not an inch of give in his tone or face.  It was true after all.  That it wouldn’t work anymore than his Adderall did now that he was the proud-owner of super-charged healing to go with being a kitsune didn’t need saying.  One of his little sins of omission that unless he got too injured to play off he had zero intention of sharing with anyone, even his uncle, when it came to SHIELD personnel.  “I have enough trouble with Adderall without adding more crap on top of it and cognitive techniques have helped me handle most of my panic attacks this long, using more to deal with the rest of my issues is worth it if it means avoiding more migraines or issues with my appetite or whatever.”

“Very well.”  Robert agreed, though he genuinely thought a basic sleeping medication or anti-anxiety med _would_ help at least in the short term when the worst of the traumas the lad experienced were so fresh and debilitating.

Though the young man certainly talked a good talk and walked a good walk to keep others from realizing the extent of how truly debilitating and damaging what he’d been through was.

“Training once you’re cleared by medical will likely help at least some of the recurring issues with paranoia and hypervigilance, replacing the feeling of being under constant threat with a confidence in being able to handle threats to yourself and others.”  Robert continued to advise them.  “Mr. Stilinski is aware of situations that might cause issues with training, when he’s cleared will go over them in detail with whoever is assigned to his hand-to-hand combat training and basic escape techniques.”

“Restraints.”  Coulson spoke, almost to himself.  “Being physically attacked.  Both of those are going to be problem areas, aren’t they?”

“Maybe.”  Stiles admitted, chewing lightly on his bottom lip.  “More for whoever gets the joy of training me than anyone else since I’m more likely to lash out than freeze up.  As long as I’m never paralyzed from the neck-down there’s not much that can be thrown at me that’s likely to send me spiraling.”

“The paralytic.”  Coulson nodded.  “That had gotten our attention in Argent’s reports but we never got a clear answer on what it was or who designed it.”

“Because it wasn’t designed.”  Stiles smiled, always happy to punt Argent right under the bus of his uncle and Director Fury’s suspicion.  Because yes: he really _was_ that petty.  “It’s a naturally occurring toxin just _extremely_ rare to the point that I only know of one source of it worldwide though there might be more I’m not aware of.”

“We’ll talk more about that later when you fill in those gaps in the Beacon Hills file.”  Phil decided on the spot.  He hadn’t been joking about the paralytic.  From the little they were able to discover from blood-toxin panels done by the sheriff’s department and the local hospital it was _extremely_ effective and potent but processed out of the subject’s system rapidly.  It was no wonder the biochemists were salivating over it and threw a collective hissy fit when Argent failed to come through with a decent sample.  “But there’s no reason for being paralyzed to be part of your training, even if you eventually decided to join our highest-trained operatives on a strike team.”

“Good to know.”  Stiles rose, shaking hands with his new shrink.  “Doctor Gothenburg, see you…?”

“Next week.”  Phil stepped in with a _look_ for his nephew.  “ _I’m_ still on leave and _you’re_ still on light-duty and R&R until Monday, no exceptions.”

“Wednesday.”  Robert held in a laugh over the impression of a guard dog one of his most frustrating patients and colleagues was giving to protect his nephew from the big-bad-shrink.  _Agents_.  To a one they all treated sitting in his chair like worse torture than _actual_ torture.  “Details are in the email.”

“See ya then, Doc.”

“Mr. Stilinski, A.D. Coulson.”

“Doctor.”

…

The next day, after spending most of the night, morning, and afternoon reviewing the files on one Captain Steven Grant Rogers on his SHIELD-issued StarkPad (they gave him a StarkPhone too, _score_ ) in between studying for his upcoming battery of high school exams, and un-fucking Argent’s reports on Beacon Hills, Stiles jogged to the front door when the doorbell rang about a half hour before dinner based on the smells coming from the kitchen.

He took one look at who was standing – complete with anxious shifting – on the front step, turned and looked over his shoulder as he called back to his Uncle Phil like the utter troll he truly was at heart:

_“Uncle Phil, your boyfriend is here!!!!!!!!!”_

On the front step, Clint blinked and followed the teenager into the brownstone having _no fucking clue_ what the little bastard just said.

Though he heard the sudden crash from the kitchen _loud_ and clear.

And the swearing.

Especially the swearing as he closed the left-open door behind him.

“How did you know?”  He heard/lip-read Phil’s demand as his always-calm handler stood flushed and surprised in the midst of what looked like a pitcher of lemonade, the kid already going for a broom and paper towels to help clean up.

Stiles snorted looking between the pair who rather resolutely _weren’t_ looking at each other but were focused on a mixture of him and the mess of the kitchen floor.

“I just left a public _high school_ behind.”  Stiles snarked with an exaggerated roll of his eyes.  “Your little by-play yesterday over you being an uncle might’ve fooled your co-workers or whatever but _me?_ ”  He shook his head with a tsk.  “ _Please_.  Public high school is like a pressure cooker of UST and relationship drama.  I could see it on you two from ten paces even if I _didn’t_ know you as well as I do.”

Clint’s grinned was sharp-edged and pleased.

“Oh, he’s going to be _good_.”

“Bitch please.”  Stiles pretended to toss a mane of hair he didn’t have over his shoulder, complete with hand-flick.  “I already _am_.”

…

Over the next two weeks, things settle in a routine.

Clint decides he likes the snarky, tricksy little shit that is his boyfriend’s – live-in, apparently, which Stiles’s _did not_ know due to Clint only being assigned to New York the same day Stiles had his meeting with Fury – nephew and in lieu of Nat being off on a recon assignment conscripts him as his partner-in-crime when Stiles would show up twice a week at the SHIELD base for his appointments with his shrink and the medical team.

That watching a teenager research in a veritable cyclone of open books, web browser tabs, the limited SHIELD database access his tablet was privy too, and reams of notes was in turns fascinating and _terrifying_ he kept the fuck to himself, thanks.

Phil enjoyed that week of leave with his nephew during the days and then Clint joining them in the evening squiring Stiles around the famous landmarks of the city or just staying in and having dinner before binging Netflix.

And Stiles?

Well, Stiles had been inducted into a whole new world of information and possibilities and he was going to milk it for every last byte of knowledge it had to offer.

When he wasn’t making plans on where-what-why-how he was going to guide a war veteran super-soldier into the twenty-first century, he was trolling for information on the supernatural.

When he wasn’t trolling through SHIELD’s version of a bestiary – that he was relatively certain his uncle and Fury only gave him access to out of hope he’d eventually agree to update it – he was reviewing for both his exit-exams for his high school courses and his first battery of challenge-course exams from Columbia.

When he wasn’t studying for school purposes, he was studying for his own purposes surrounding PTSD, paranoia, hypervigilance, and how to manage symptoms.

And so on into infinity for whatever caught at his brain in a given moment since learning how to deal with his ADHD _without_ medication was a work in progress even if it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

From what he could tell, his new foxy self managed to fix _some_ of his issues regarding his mental health – the ones with a physical cause such as fucked up brain chemistry.

Unlearning almost two decades of habits and behavior however wasn’t a walk in the park.

Add in a kitsune’s normal tricksy behavior and attitude and, well, yeah.

He might not still have the original _cause_ of his ADHD but he sure as shit had quite a few of the lingering behaviors hanging around for shits and giggles.

All this time he continued to get updates from his Pack back in Beacon Hills and his Pack-Adjacent Hales.

Peter telling him he was going to be “on walkabout” for a while and available for long-distance research purposes but not physical interactions.

Derek deciding to follow his uncle’s example in the wake of a lull in the shit-storm that was living on a Hellmouth and going to visit his sister.

Scott on the ongoing saga of him-and-Kira.

Isaac on the ongoing saga of Allison and her latest round of wolf-fetish.

But the truly _interesting_ tidbit of information didn’t come from any of them but from Ethan via Danny.

Beacon Hills had a new substitute teacher taking over for Finstock for a couple of weeks.

According to all accounts she was short, stacked, with vibrant red hair, a sweet smile, and smelled like a hunter absent the wolfsbane.

Which was when Stiles sat for a long moment, pondering things, and readied to pounce on his uncle as soon as Phil returned from the base before eventually discarding the notion for preference for keeping an eye on the Beacon Hills file in the SHIELD database, the only file he had read-write access to.

One of them – either Phil or Fury – had sent an agent to Beacon Hills.

Call him paranoid – Dr. Gothenburg sure as shit did – but he’d rather know _what_ she learned than throw a fit and find himself blocked.

Because, in the end, if he didn’t know what _SHIELD_ knew about good-old-BH, he couldn’t redirect them or divert them.

And if he was going to be in New York for fuck-knew-how-long handling the integration of Captain America into the twenty-first century, keeping SHIELD’s mitts off his friends was likely going to be the only real _help_ he could offer beyond transcontinental research-fu.

Though at least Argent had gotten placed on strict probation as an agent as a result of Fury’s review of Stiles’s un-redacting a _lot_ of information that made hunters in general and Argent in particular look very, very bad.

It was a small fuck-you to the guy who’d held a gun to his head more than once, literally and figuratively, but hey: he’d take it.

Then after he’d been in New York a little over two weeks, two events happened almost back to back:

An old friend arrived from home and a national treasure was given the go-ahead to _wake the fuck up already_.


	6. Chapter 6

** Fire on Fire **

**Chapter Six:**

**Advanced Methods in Hero-Wrangling**

_May 21, 2012; SHIELD’s New York base of operations:_

Stiles turned in place in the middle of the small hospital-type room.

How best to “wake up” one Captain Steven Grant Rogers had been a hot topic of discussion between himself, Dr. Gothenburg, the other medical professionals at the base, and his Uncle Phil over the last couple of weeks ever since Stiles had been read-in on the situation.

Originally they were going to try and drop him into a replica of the poor-bastard’s bedroom from the 40’s.

Yeah, like _that_ was going to go over well.

Stiles was glad that plan had been scrapped – apparently the agent who was earmarked to handle the Captain’s case had been killed before Stiles arrived in NYC, hence the “project” his uncle had dropped in his lap – since as a dude who struggled with knowing reality from dreams at times he could think of a couple _hundred_ ways that could go wrong off the top of his head.

The last thing Rogers was going to remember when he woke up was _how he was sent unconscious_.

In the middle of a sacrifice-suicide play to bring down HYDRA over the North Atlantic.

In the middle of a fucking _war_.

Waking up in Brooklyn like it’d all been one massive fucked up head-trip _would not_ help him acclimate to his new circumstances in any way, shape, or form.

Once Stiles was tagged for handling the day-to-day care and feeding of his very own super-soldier he’d talked every day with his new therapist (on Wednesday and Fridays from one until four) slash teammate the rest of the week over different ways they could approach the initial introduction to _surprise! You’re not dead_.

It took the better part of ten days for an approximation of a plan to be cobbled together between them and then passed over to Uncle Phil for approval, which came in less than an hour, and thereafter the focus had shifted from planning to actualizing the framework of their idea.

What it came down to was both what Rogers would believe as well as what would be familiar enough not to freak him out anymore than he already was going to be without straight-up hiding that he wasn’t in the 40’s anymore.

SHIELD, under Uncle Phil’s direction, had tossed up some sheetrock _inside_ an existing room with fake windows that provided filtered “daylight” and an observation window that was two-way glass for monitoring the good Captain as well as the initial medical staff – and Stiles – that were going to be present when they woke him up.  It looked like a warm hospital room with pinky-beige walls, watercolor landscapes of fields of golden wheat and the Rocky Mountains on three out of four walls, and cabinets hiding the most advanced of the medical equipment from sight.  A radio that wasn’t _too_ obviously futuristic but definitely higher-tech than anything the Captain would recognize stood on his bedside table.

Warm had been the key.

For a man who’d been on ice for seventy years, there was nothing that was going to convince him he was awake like warmth.

His bed was as comfortable as Stiles could find for a hospital bed and made of steel instead of hardened plastic like most modern hospital adjustable beds and piled with flannel sheets in white and both a fluffy comforter in blue plus a stack of extra blankets in a rainbow of colors.

They dressed him in flannel pajamas in plain tan instead of the standard hospital gown he’d been kept in since SHIELD pulled him out of the ocean, unhooked him from the double-dosing IVs, and Stiles sent out the medical staff to watch from the other side of the window and glass door that required an approved SHIELD access card to open from the outside while he parked himself in the brick-red side chair.

And waited.

…

_“Come in this is Captain Rogers can you read me?”_

_“Captain Rogers?”_

_“Steve is that you?  Are you alright?”_

_“Peggy!  Schmidt’s dead.”_

_“What about the plane?”_

_“That’s a little tougher to explain.”_

_“Give me your coordinates, I’ll give you a safe landing site.”_

_“There’s not going to be a safe landing.  But I can try and force it down.”_

_“I’ll-I’ll get Howard on the line, he’ll know what to do.”_

_“There’s not enough time.  This thing is heading too fast and it’s heading for New York.”_

_A long moment of silence rang over the_ Valkerie’s _comms._

_“I gotta put ‘er in the water.”_

_“Please.  D-don’t do this.  We have time, we can work it out.”_

_“Right now I’m in the middle of nowhere.  If I wait any longer a lot of people are gonna die.”_

_Another silence._

_“Peggy.  This is my choice.”_

_“Peggy.”_

_“I’m here.”_

_“I’m gonna need a rain-check on that dance.”_

_“Alright.”  Even Steve in the middle of his last moments watching the ice-caps over the North Atlantic come rushing towards him could hear the tears.  “A week, next Saturday.  At the Stork Club.”_

_“You got it.”_

_“Eight o’clock on the dot.  Don’t you dare be late.  Understood?”_

_“You know I still don’t know how to dance.”_

_“I’ll show you how.  Just be there.”_

_“We’ll have the band play something slow.  I’d hate to step on your…”_

_Static._

_Silence._

_The frozen black heart of the sea._

_And then, against all odds._

_He woke up._

_…_

Warmth.

So much warmth it was almost burning but instead sank into his muscles and bones like the best of comforting hugs in the world.

There was blues playing on a radio close by, the hum of bass and ring of strings and horns reaching his ears along with the woman’s rich voice that he didn’t recognize though he knew the song.

_“Don’t know why, there’s no sun up in the sky…”_

Bucky…

Bucky and his ma had always liked blues more than Steve but being friends and growing up in each other’s pockets, he knew the music almost as well as he did the big-band dance numbers that the dames, including Bucky’s sisters, enjoyed.

Flexing his fingers, he felt the soft fuzz of cotton flannel sheeting under his fingertips explaining the warmth.

The weight it came with was some sort of oddly-puffy bedspread pulled up to his shoulders.

Turning his head and cracking his eyes open warily, half-fearing and half-hoping that crashing into the sea was a nightmare even as he knew it wasn’t, he saw…quite a bit actually and not much of it making sense.

Was he in a recovery room somewhere?

The medical equipment, even if a lot of it looked more like something he’d find Howard tinkering with at the SSR, said hospital but he’d never spent time in a hospital room as warm and… _home-like_ as this one.

Though he noted the windows that glowed with warm light and dressed with sheer white curtains didn’t look _out_ at anything.

And a pane of glass – two really, a large rectangle set into the wall and another that looked like a door – that were mirrored for observation or he was a jackalope.

Turning his head the other direction, he frowned lightly at the sight that met him of a kid – in his late teens, maybe, hard to say but likely old enough to enlist – sitting in a chair that looked more comfortable than anything Steve’d owned in his entire life and reading a file labeled with “Captain Steven Grant Rogers: Top Secret.”

Well, they knew who he was at least so that narrowed things down a bit to good and _awful, terribly, bad._

His dog tags were still in place around his neck however, which tipped the scales over to him at least being in the hands of the Allies if not in a secret SSR base he’d never been to before.

The kid was dressed in clothes unlike anything he’d seen before along with about a third of the stuff in the room around him, what looked like some sort of tactical pants over worn-in brown leather boots and topped with a short-sleeved shirt in a shiny material that had a smooth knit collar that came to a stop maybe an inch shy of his jaw.

He had the pale skin of someone who worked in an office rather than outdoors where he’d turn red and patchy-tan from the sun flicked with moles and freckles all married to dark brown hair that looked like it hadn’t had a comb taken to it that morning but almost deliberately, like an intended form of messiness.

“Take a picture, Cap,” that well-formed mouth curved as its owner spoke in a lazy accent he’d heard on soldiers from the West Coast, amber-whiskey eyes dancing with an inner-joke finally lifting from reviewing his file.  “It’ll last longer.”

“Where am I?”  Steve asked as he sat up and turned in the bed, bracing his palms on the edge and setting his feet firmly on the plain wood floor in case he needed to bolt, facing the kid who’d set the file aside on a side-table and clicked off the still-playing radio – fancier than any he’d seen in his life – off while he was at it.

“New York City, Midtown to be precise.”  Stiles explained to the soldier out-of-time, leaning forward and propping his elbows on his knees, hands folded out in front of him, making himself as small and unthreatening as he could under the circumstances.  Just because he _could_ take a punch from the guy doesn’t mean he _wanted_ to.

Especially since he couldn’t successfully fight back without outing himself as having better-than-human strength and speed himself, something he was understandably reluctant to do.

“You were brought here for observation and recovery after you were found alive in the North Atlantic off of Greenland.”

Steve let that run through his mind, shaking his head lightly as things started to click into place.

In particular how many things around him were _out_ of place.

“How,” he cleared his throat, blue eyes flickering over details on the kid – the single biggest _out of place_ piece of this puzzle – the strange clothes, the watch on his wrist, the bag at his feet with more files and other things Steve didn’t even know the _names_ of.  None of it made sense.  Not any of it.  “How long have I been under observation?”

“Two months, give or take.”  Stiles told him.  “But that’s not the question you really want to ask, is it?”

“What’s today?”

“May 21st.”

God, Steve hadn’t been found for months…Peggy was going to kill him.

“2012.”

Shock eclipsed his former confusion, his observations, his worries about Peggy, his ongoing grief over Bucky, all of it.

“Come again?”  He finally managed to stutter out, watching the kid for any sign of dishonesty.

“You’re been in a coma for seventy years – give or take – Captain Rogers.”  Stiles said, tone as calm and forthright as he could manage.  That he might’ve practiced and copied it off of his dad was between him and his mirror back home.  “It’s May 21, 2012, you’re in New York City.  You were found by a team from SHIELD, the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division which was founded by some friends of yours including Peggy Carter and Howard Stark after the end of the war and the dissolution of the SSR.  They never stopped looking for you, Captain, not once in seventy years, until you could be brought home.”

“I-” Steve shook his head as the kid reached out and clicked the radio back on, turning the dial until he came to a news program that buzzed along giving updates that made zero sense to Steve but eventually included a weather report for the day which backed up the kid’s words.  “I had a date.”  Was all he could bring himself to say through the shock.

…

Outside the mocked-up hospital room, Nick turned to Phil, expectation written all over his face.

Without even looking, Phil shot him down.

“No.”  He repeated for at least the dozenth time since Nick got his hands on Stiles’s file.  “You _still_ can’t recruit him for a full-time agent position until he’s not a minor.”

“He just talked who is effectively a time-traveler around panic.”  Nick told his good-eye in an utter deadpan.  “And likely tearing his way through our facility in said panic.  If I _don’t_ offer him a job I’d be out of my mind.”

“He has a job.  With SHIELD, I may remind you.”  Phil rolled his eyes, waving in the medic crew for the battery of cognitive function tests they needed to run the Captain through first thing.  “Hands off until he’s eighteen, Nick.”

…

Steve went through the exam that followed in a daze.

A trio of doctors in white lab coats and one in a suit came in, taking his pulse rate and a dozen other things with devices he’d never seen before in his life, while the one in the suit asked him a series of questions including a few basic math problems and memory questions like giving him a word to remember and then asking for it several minutes later.

All the while the kid sat in his armchair and watched Steve, brown eyes taking note of everything and everyone around them, eventually the doctor in the suit splitting off from the others and speaking a moment with the kid before leaving, the others following him like white-coated ducklings to report to whoever was in charge.

It wasn’t the kid, things couldn’t have changed _that_ much, but he had sway of some sort that much was clear.

And became clearer when several minutes of silence later the glass door opened once more ushering in another man in a suit and someone who without even saying a word was instantly in command of the room, Steve rising to his feet and falling into parade rest instinctively as the kid stood up and moved over to flank the guy in the suit like he in turn flanked the third man in his leather and eye-patch.

“Captain Rogers, it is truly an honor to meet you.”  The man said in a deep voice that had a vein of iron running through it.  “My name is Colonel Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD.  You’ve already met your SHIELD liaison, Mr. Stilinski, this is his handler Agent Coulson, my assistant director of operations.”

“Stilinski?”  Steven latched onto that like a life preserver in a roaring sea.  “Like Mitch Stilinski?”

“Exactly like.”  Stiles nodded, giving the good captain a slight nod.  “Mieczysław Stilinski, at your service and named for my grandpa Mitch but you can call me Stiles since we’re going to be spending a lot of time together, Captain Rogers.”

“Grandpa?”  Steve huffed a humorless laugh, shaking his head and rubbing one hand over his eyes.  “Seventy years, I guess Mitch would be – they all would be – by now.”

“Mr. Stilinski was chosen to be your liaison and guide to the modern world based on a number of factors.”  Fury assured him.  “One of which did happen to be his family’s connection to yourself but he is well-qualified for the job.  A lot has happened since you went on ice, Captain.  SHIELD didn’t spend all that time looking for you just to throw you out into the deep end.”

“And I appreciate that.”  Steve decided that gracious was his best bet – for the moment.  “Truly I do.  What happens now?”

“You’ve been cleared by Dr. Gothenburg to leave.”  Phil stepped up to the plate, shoving his inner fanboy well down in the face of the job to be done.  “Your cognitive function is good, and SHIELD has put together an identity to help you navigate the modern world.  If you agree, you’ll stay with Stiles in his home, have appointments with Dr. Gothenburg to help you acclimate, and have access to every possible resource SHIELD has made available for your benefit.”

“Your home?”  Steve arched a brow at the kid, _Stiles_ , who old enough to enlist or not Steve would still say was too young to have a house or apartment of his own.

“Our home,” Stiles tilted his head at his uncle.  “Meet my Uncle Phil.  You rescued his dad, my grandpa, from a HYDRA lab when you went in for Sgt. Barnes.”

“It would be our genuine honor to host you during this time, Captain Rogers.”  Phil dropped the unflappable agent for a moment in deference for earnestness.  “We wouldn’t impinge on your privacy, you’ll have a suite of your own, and we live in New York which at least will be somewhat familiar.”

It was a lot they were tossing out at him and he wasn’t certain he trusted it.

But at the moment…what choice did he really have?

“Alright.”  Steve agreed slowly though the tension didn’t really drain from his frame.  “That sounds just fine.  For now.”

“For now.”  Fury echoed, nodding, then sent a wordless order in a glance at Coulson and Stilinski before sweeping out of the room.

Stiles snagged his messenger bag, stuffing Cap’s file into it and slinging it over his shoulder as his Uncle Phil pointed Steve towards the slippers at the end of the bed, the two of them flanking the super-soldier as they led him towards the locker room nearby and a change of clothes, socks, and boots.

It wasn’t much, not yet, but it was something better than pjs at least.

They’d used the medics’ measurements to get some simple tactical pants, t-shirts, underwear, and socks, about enough for a week, and stored a set at SHIELD and the rest at the brownstone.

Taking Cap shopping was one of the first things on Stiles’s list.

Letting him pick his own things and make his own decisions, reclaim some autonomy and personal agency in the wake of the confusion, panic, and having everyone else making decisions for him caused by his little Sleeping Beauty act.

As it was, Stiles was betting on at least a day or two being spent in a daze before Cap really started engaging with him or anyone at all.

And that was just fine.

Stiles’s job _was_ Captain Rogers.

However Cap wanted to acclimate was what they’d do, even if Stiles fully intended to gently push and prod him when needed along the way.

Let the guy take a bit of time to check out.

To grieve, even if that much hadn’t really registered or hit him yet.

After saving the world, the poor bastard had more than earned it.

…

Steve stared out at a world that looked almost nothing like the one he’d left behind when he’d gone off to war.

Tall buildings made of gleaming metal and glass between graceful brick and stone.

Crowds so large that he could see himself being buoyed along in their wake, unable to do anything but follow in the crush of people.

Skirts and trousers so short that it made him blush and look away as dames flashed their gams.

So many people: beautiful, strange, pretty, plain, and distinctly _odd_ ; everything else might’ve changed but New York was just as _alive_ as it had ever been.

And that?

There was an oddly-aching comfort to be found in that as he sat in the backseat of the big black rig he’d been ushered into at the base that had pulled right out into a crush of New York traffic, Agent Coulson in the passenger seat as a silent but extremely _watchful_ man with the ready-tenseness of a soldier carrying a sidearm and at least one knife drove, Stiles tucked in next to Steve and pointing out this or that of new landmarks among the ones that were heart-breakingly familiar as the soldier – Agent Barton – steered them towards the Upper East Side which had Steve arching a brow.

Being the assistant director of the new version of the SSR must pay well or Agent Coulson and Stiles came from money.

Though since Stiles had none of the monied flash Steve had gotten used to from Howard it was hard to say.

An impression that was confirmed – though he didn’t know which was right regarding the source of the funds – when Barton pulled into the driveway of a tidy brownstone that would’ve cost the earth when _Steve_ was living in New York, he didn’t want to think about what inflation would put it at.

They paused for a moment after Barton hit a button on the dash then the garage door was opening showing off a beauty of a car in cherry red next to the empty space Barton pulled into before the door closed them off from the busy New York streets outside.

Stiles and the agents led him inside, giving him the nickel tour of the ground floor before moving up to the second where a living room, office, and a master suite that Stiles pointed out as belonging to his uncle and “Clint” – Agent Barton – had him raising his brows at the easy comfort the kid said such a thing with since – and he had a feeling he was going to run into it a lot – seventy years ago that sorta thing would’ve gotten the agents beaten, possibly arrested, or even killed and such relations were outlawed.

Glad to see at least one thing off the bat that was better in the future, though it didn’t really apply to Steve personally, it woulda done to more than one of his friends and brothers-in-arms good men, women, and soldiers all.

The agents left them be after that and a firm _look_ outta whiskey eyes that gave Steve a pang.

Not because of the eye color or anything, Stiles didn’t look all that much like his grandpa from what Steve could tell, but that expression on the kid’s face was _pure_ Mischief Mitch to a T.

Up on the next floor which was all bedrooms and washing facilities, Stiles pointed out his own room then a storage room, and finally a pretty plainly decorated guest bedroom with the biggest bed Steve had ever seen and a connecting bath that also led out to the hallway and the room being used for storage.

So, not a private bath which for some reason Stiles felt the need to apologize for that Steve didn’t understand at all, but a helluva lot better than the group facilities on every military base Steve had spent time in or the tiny w/c he’d shared with the Barnes family before he was drafted into Project Rebirth by Dr. Erskine.

Steve didn’t have much to say, feeling numb, as Stiles showed him how to work the shower and john since they were operated differently than the ones he’d used in the – in the past.

For a moment his vision almost whited out at just how cruelly _apt_ that phrase had just become when everything around him shouted how far from home he was.

In the past.

Everything, that’s what.

Everything and everyone he’d ever _known_ were all in the past.

All but Steve.

The unexpected price he had to pay to go from a five-foot-four asthmatic who looked like one stiff punch would knock ‘im down to a super-soldier, and wasn’t fate cruel for it.

“Look.”

Stiles’s voice snapped him out of his daze, if only for a moment.

“I know you’re in a state of shock, maybe denial over everything and you’re completely entitled to it, so here’s what I’m gonna do.”  Stiles said, watching the lost Captain with something approaching the same level of compassion he’d only ever given to those that were his in his life.  Damnit.  Like he needed more of those hanging around.  Adding Clint to the count was bad enough, but that lost puppy look on the Captain’s face hit him right in the feels.

He knew what it was like to be lost.

To watch everything and none of it make sense.

Granted, his was induced by an evil-fucking-Nogitsune, but still.

Not even a day awake and the dude had gotten to him.

He could _never_ tell Uncle Phil or he’d be so fucking smug there’d be no living with him.

“I’m gonna leave these files on the desk,” Stiles said and put action to words, setting the dossiers SHIELD kept on the Howling Commandos, Howard Stark, Peggy Carter, and even Steve himself on the desk that had legal pads, pens, and pencils in the drawer and a sketchbook sitting on the blotter.  “And let you look at them at your own speed.  I’ll bring up dinner tonight, then tomorrow I’ll need to see you out of this room for meals.  After that,” he shrugged.  “We’ll make a new plan once you’ve processed some of all,” he whirled a hand in the air.  “ _This_.”

“Alright.”  Steve managed to force out from his choked-up throat.

“Good then, uh.”  Stiles pointed to a plain-white door that looked to Steve like some sorta cabinet.  “Ice chest is there and has water and juice in it.  If you want to keep the medics from chasing your tail you’ll keep hydrated and I’m gonna, yeah…”

And just like that, Stiles left and shut the door behind him, leaving behind a seriously-displaced super-soldier to collapse into sobs on the edge of a California King bed in his wake.

…

Steve had to admit: Stiles so far was a man of his word, just like his grandfather had been.

He brought in a tray loaded up with a platter containing a trio of steaks, a pile of mashed potatoes, the former topped with grilled mushrooms and onions and the latter swimming in butter, plus a bowl of broccoli and cauliflower topped with a melted cheese sauce, and a couple of hot rolls plus a cold glass of milk to wash it all down and a tall ice-cold beer already breathing away.

All in all, it amounted to more food he’d ever seen served up – and of a better quality – than he’d seen in his life and it was all for him.

Not even the SSR had fed him so well after he’d become Captain America and had his appetite shoot through the roof, especially if he was actually being _active_ and not just traveling between USO performances.

What Stiles brought him for one meal would’ve been enough food to feed three or four guys in his neighborhood in Brooklyn and he’d done it without batting an eye.

That was the first real moment of what he later found out was _culture shock_ that he ran head-first into after waking up in the future.

Yeah, there’d been other things that’d caught his attention, but nothing really struck _home_ the way that meal did.

Meat had been scarce since long before the war where he’d grown up, while fresh dairy was a luxury.

Though he found out why Stiles had gotten the meal size right on the first go the next morning when he came down carrying his dirty dishes from dinner the night before and saw the spread the kid put on for breakfast – and how much of that spread ended up on Stiles’s plate.

Eggs, bacon, sausages plus toast and a big bowl of fruit were all lined up on the kitchen table as the four men dug in with mugs of coffee doctored to their preference to wash it all down.

Stiles kept pace with Steve, putting away what was nearly his weight in food, the two between them not leaving a crumb to be found as Steve watched it all and the others talked around his silence.

Lunch played out the same only just between Agent Barton and Stiles, Agent Coulson having left for the day, and then dinner was a repeat of breakfast with only the foods on offer changing with the meal.

There was always enough for Steve to walk away satisfied and true to Stiles’s promise they _did_ let him walk away and seclude himself in the room allocated to him in the brownstone.

The second breakfast Steve had at the home shared with three other men played out exactly the same was the one from the day before, only once Coulson and Barton had left – either for the base or whatever it was Barton did during the day – Steve got up and helped Stiles clean up rather than going back up to his room.

Stiles had kept up his end of the bargain.

Let him process and mourn in private or at least get a start on it.

Now it was time for Steve to keep to his side of the deal and he started it was a few questions regarding all the strangeness that surrounded him in the home.

“What _is_ that thing?”

Maybe it wasn’t the most diplomatic way to broach the subject and start talking to his, uh, liaison, but it got the job done anyway.

Stiles quirked a bit of a smile, looking down at the open dishwasher that he was loading up with the damage from the morning meal after giving the dishes a rinse – an old habit from the crappy dishwasher at his home in Beacon Hills that he hadn’t shook yet even though Uncle Phil’s was a lot better at its job than his dad’s was – and answered.

“Dishwasher, does what it says on the tin.  More common than not anymore in a lot of homes, definitely cuts a chunk of time away from having to do dishes.”

“And that one.”  He pointed towards another foreign piece of kitchen machinery, Stiles guiding him patiently through answers and explanations for blender, stand mixer, toaster, and microwave then the dishes were loaded and the lesson continued through the other areas of the house – with demonstrations depending on what the thing was.

Television was fascinating, along with _DVD_ player, gaming console, stereo/home theater, and alarm system, then they came to things that Steve _hadn’t_ noticed and took a lot longer for Stiles to explain and demonstrate: personal electronics.

“Okay, so,” Steve pointed between the _laptop, tablet,_ and _cellphone_.  “Those are all versions of _computers_ with different capabilities depending on the system.”

“Right.”  Stiles nodded, having brought his laptop and his SHIELD gear as well as his personal stuff to show _please, call me Steve_ , different models and versions of the same concept.  “You have some books on the bookshelf in your room that’ll do a better job explaining things clearly than I can, I tend to go off on tangents and ramble.  But for the most part everyone in the States usually has at least a cellphone if not multiple electronic devices they use and carry everyday.”

“Right.”  Steve sighed, lost and knowing it but fascinated despite it.  Stiles’s description of the internet – which connects various computer devices and phones and allows sharing of information on a global scale…apparently, as well as storing information – had indeed been a bit rambling and he’d gotten lost a few times but Stiles was a patient teacher with it.  “And this?”  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, thumbing free one of the little thick cards made of a weird material that wasn’t rubber but wasn’t any metal he’d ever seen before either.

“Ah, debit card.”  Stiles said, pulling out the Captain’s other cards he’d gotten SHIELD via his uncle to set Steve up with.  “This is a credit card, here’s a transit card, and these are all membership or access cards for places like SHIELD, the New York library system, a gym, the driver’s license is self-explanatory I think…”

“I follow so far except the credit and debit cards other than that they have something to do with accounting.”

“Debit cards are also called bank cards.”  Stiles explained, showing where Steve could see the small _debit_ label on the card with a Visa logo.  “They act like a direct electronic link to the bank account SHIELD set up for you.  At the moment until you decide otherwise you’re an employee of SHIELD,” he told Steve when had got a look on his face that was all _what the hell would I need a bank account for_?  “And they gave you a signing bonus – kinda – to help with initial purchases before your first paycheck is deposited.  Which is all done electronically now.”

He tapped the credit card when he saw Steve had followed that much though he still looked a little uncomfortable with it.

“This is more for emergencies than anything if you need something and I’m not with you.  It’s linked to the same credit account as mine that SHIELD manages.  They’re paying the tab for pretty much anything you need, or I think you need while getting stabilized in the future, including big purchases like a wardrobe, they already supplied a phone and tablet for you whenever you’re ready to learn how to use them.”

“That’s rather _generous_ for a government agency.”  Steve couldn’t help but note.

“They’re an international intelligence agency,” Stiles shrugged.  “They have a budget that’s ridiculous based on some of the equipment I’ve seen around the base.  Paying a couple thousand bucks to get one of the best assets ever to work with the US military back up to spec isn’t exactly a burden on their resources, even if you never do another mission in your life.”

…

A couple hours of “lessons” had both Steve and Stiles ready for a break, even if to an outsider it didn’t look like they’d accomplished that much.

Steve followed Stiles into the kitchen under the promise of snacks and a movie.

Which was honestly mind-blowing for Steve along with the idea of _e-mail_ given that he had a frame of reference for the same thing during his past.

You could only see a movie in a theater.

Sending a message across the country let alone around the globe would take more than a week.

Now you could watch any of thousands or millions of programs right in your home and send a message across the room or across the world in an instant with the push of a button.

He thought _that_ more than anything might take him the longest to get used to.

The sheer _speed_ of everything, the madcap pace that people in the future were accustomed to.

Steve cocked his head with a slight frown as he watched Stiles take the carafe off the blender base and add a scoop of powder from one canister on the counter then half a dozen from another, ice-cream from a container in the _freezer_ , fresh fruit, and then added a bunch of milk from the _fridge_ before popping the top back on the carafe and sending all of it spinning and churning with a flick of a switch on the blender base and a cacophony of noise.

“What are you doing?”  He asked.  “That doesn’t look like any kind of snack I’m familiar with.”

“It’s a protein milkshake.”  Stiles told him with a playful smile dancing over his face.  “I dropped a lot of weight up until about a month ago and until I’ve put most of it back the medics won’t clear me for my physical combat and weapons evaluations at SHIELD.  Science has come up with ways to supplement the diet so you can get more of what your body needs than you would naturally just from meals.”  He pointed at the canisters with their spin-tops.  “Like those but there’s thousands of them on the market for sale.”

“So…”  Steve pursed his lips, tracking that – he thought.  “Like for anemia you could supplement with iron instead of having to eat a bunch of iron-rich foods?”

Given that he _had_ anemia pre-serum and had to eat liver to help combat it, such supplementation would have been a god-send.

“Exactly like that,” Stiles nodded, beaming a smile over his shoulder as the shake finished blending and he stopped the appliance, taking down a pair of tall glasses and filling them, popping a straw in each, then passing one over to Steve and leading him back to the living room with its entertainment system.  “Only iron supplements are in capsule form instead of a diet supplement.  These,” he held up the drink as Steve sipped tentatively at the greyish-purple mixture before brightening at the fatty-sweet taste that mostly covered up the odd taste that many supplements had.  “Have enough calories and nutrients to serve as a day’s meals for some people or a light snack for you and me.”

“That’s amazing.”  Steve told him honestly as he watched Stiles pick up one of the remote controls for the gaming system, remembering the earlier lecture on “apps”, as Stiles selected one with a red background and the title of _Netflix_.  “Wish we had something like this back when I was serving.”

“There was,” Stiles shrugged.  “It just wasn’t widely used or mass-produced yet.  That didn’t start happening until the fifties I don’t think and it didn’t really _grow_ as a market outside of bodybuilders and weightlifters until, like, the nineties I don’t think.  And now: lesson over.”  He selected the movie he’d been looking for and sat back, sucking down his own mass-gainer laced milkshake and prepared to veg for an hour and change.  “Time to work on your popular culture knowledge.  Step One: Disney.”

“We had Disney in the forties, Stiles.”  Steve told him deadpan already half-done with his “protein-milkshake.”

“I know but there’s a lot of good animated films that’ve come out since then.”  Stiles shrugged.  “A lot of films and television period.  I figured Disney would be a good starting point because it’s pretty embedded in both American and international culture and easy to show in chronological order.”  He flailed a hand in the general direction of the screen.  “This is _Cinderella_ , which came out in the early fifties and was one of their most popular films of all time.  Hush and enjoy the magic.”

“Yessir.”

Stiles narrowed his eyes at the golden-haired hero seated on the other end of the couch.

“Are you _sassing me_ , soldier?”

Steve smirked, eyes playful for a moment instead of lost and dazed.

“ _Never_.”


	7. Chapter 7

** Fire on Fire **

Note: “We Didn’t Start the Fire” Songwriters: Billy Joel

We Didn’t Start the Fire lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group

**Chapter Seven: Seventy Years/Seventy Days**

_Harry Truman, Doris Day, Red China, Johnnie Ray  
South Pacific, Walter Winchell, Joe DiMaggio_

_Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Studebaker, television  
North Korea, South Korea, Marilyn Monroe_

_Rosenbergs, H-bomb, Sugar Ray, Panmunjom  
Brando, "The King and I" and "The Catcher in the Rye"_

_Eisenhower, vaccine, England's got a new queen  
Marciano, Liberace, Santayana goodbye_

_We didn't start the fire_  
It was always burning  
Since the world's been turning  
We didn't start the fire  
No we didn't light it  
But we tried to fight it

_Joseph Stalin, Malenkov, Nasser and Prokofiev  
Rockefeller, Campanella, Communist Bloc_

_Roy Cohn, Juan Peron, Toscanini, Dacron  
Dien Bien Phu falls, "Rock Around the Clock"_

_Einstein, James Dean, Brooklyn's got a winning team  
Davy Crockett, Peter Pan, Elvis Presley, Disneyland_

_Bardot, Budapest, Alabama, Krushchev  
Princess Grace, "Peyton Place", trouble in the Suez_

_(Chorus)_

_Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac  
Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, "Bridge on the River Kwai"_

_Lebanon, Charlse de Gaulle, California baseball  
Starkweather, homicide, children of thalidomide_

_Buddy Holly, "Ben Hur", space monkey, Mafia  
Hula hoops, Castro, Edsel is a no-go_

_U2, Syngman Rhee, payola and Kennedy  
Chubby Checker, "Psycho", Belgians in the Congo_

_(Chorus)_

_Hemingway, Eichmann, "Stranger in a Strange Land"  
Dylan, Berlin, Bay of Pigs invasion_

_"Lawrence of Arabia", British Beatlemania  
Ole Miss, John Glenn, Liston beats Patterson_

_Pope Paul, Malcolm X, British politician sex  
JFK, blown away, what else do I have to say_

_(Chorus)_

_Birth control, Ho Chi Minh, Richard Nixon back again_  
Moonshot, Woodstock, Watergate, punk rock  
Begin, Reagan, Palestine, terror on the airline  
Ayatollah's in Iran, Russians in Afghanistan

 _"Wheel of Fortune", Sally Ride, heavy metal, suicide_  
Foreign debts, homeless vets, AIDS, crack, Bernie Goetz  
Hypodermics on the shores, China's under martial law  
Rock and roller cola wars, I can't take it anymore

 _We didn't start the fire_  
It was always burning  
Since the world's been turning  
We didn't start the fire  
But when we are gone  
Will it still burn on, and on, and on, and on

_(Chorus)_

_(Chorus)_

Steve looked up from his binder that Stiles had given him for their first lesson of the day – this one apparently set to music – the day after he learned about the wonders of Cinderella, an interesting rant regarding the “dumbing down and homogenizing” of fairy tales and folk lore, and finished out the day before the Agents had returned for dinner with something familiar that he’d needed more than he’d like to think in the form of a beautifully colored version of _The Wizard of Oz_ followed by a “prequel” recording of a stage-play called _Wicked_ that he’d liked just as much as the original.

Stiles had decided together with Steve that unless the super-soldier requested otherwise or they were required at the base they’d keep business-hours for his modern education and seven decades of various forms of history catch-up, leaving the nights and evenings for him alone to process or grieve or sketch or study the _How Stuff Works_ , _How It’s Made_ , magazines and books by _National Geographic_ , or _Time_ , or _The Discovery Channel_.

Whatever he wanted.

Something he hadn’t really thought about in weeks before he put the _Valkyrie_ down in the North Atlantic.

Which, from what he was coming to understand about Stiles’s objectives over and above those of SHIELD and Director Fury, was the whole point.

For a kid who’d only ever heard _stories_ about Steve – another head trip – he was invested in his independence and autonomy.

That morning after breakfast, Stiles had handed off the binder and explained a bit about the song he was going to put on which apparently was intended to shove a whole lot of historical highlights, popular culture references, and a chorus that read almost like an anthem.  Each page of the binder had a synopsis and then further in-depth information about each event, thing, or person referenced.  Like a cross-section of life from before the war to the late 1980’s.

So, about half of the time he’d missed.

Music videos were an interesting concept that he really liked, though the sight of a draft card being burned in the one for the song infuriated him leading Stiles to a synopsis of Korea, Vietnam, and a rather horrifying truth.

“It was supposed to end it.”  Steve sat back, bitterness coating his mouth and throat and burning brightly in his ribcage.  “A war to end all wars.  That’s what they said.”

“Yeah,” Stiles shook his head, looking just as depressed and cynical as anyone Steve had met in his life.  “Politicians like to talk a good talk but in the end that’s all it is.  Talk.  The Allies won a war.  Then they won another one in 1945.  But that didn’t stop the fighting and the arguments and the violence.  I honestly don’t think humanity with free will is ever truly going to be at peace.  It’ll _never_ be over.  All we can do – all anyone can do – is make a decision regarding what they can do and what they _can’t_ do.  What they are willing to live with and what they _aren’t_.  One fight ends, another begins somewhere else.  Your fight – your original fight if you decide to put that cowl back on at some point – ended for you a couple days ago.  Mine ended a couple weeks ago.”  Stiles shrugged, Steve eyeing him with a mixture of bafflement, grief, and rage.  “The one before that ended six months before that.  Then the one before _that_ ended four months prior, and the one that really _started_ making me more than a mouthy kid with more brains and balls than sense ended all of a week before that one.  It never ends until you put down your shield, hang up your suit, and stop _looking_.”  Stiles’s eyes flashed for a moment, Steve blinking in shock.

He could’ve sworn…nah.

Must be a trick of the strange lighting he hadn’t gotten used to yet.

People’s eyes didn’t just flash with literal fire and sparks.

Metaphorical, sure.

But literal?

Nah.

“Until you can do that, stop standing up, stop _seeing_ the evil and deciding to fight it, it’ll never be over _for you_.  Because in the end that’s all anyone gets.  Is the ability to decide, to choose.  The world is always going to keep spinning on Captain Rogers.  There’s always going to be another battle to fight if you keeping looking for one.  You just have to ask yourself: can you live with yourself if you pretend you _don’t_ see the next one that comes calling.”

…

Steve, understandably to Stiles, needed time to process after Stiles’s little rant that he’d had no idea he was going to say when he started explaining the shit that was platitudes regarding world peace.

Sure, it was a nice ideal.

Just not one he found overly realistic.

Or even mildly realistic.

Still, it was a bit heavy – and seriously depression-inducing – to drop all of, well, _that_ on a dude who’d just woken up seventy years in the future with the vague idea that maybe the world was finally at peace the way soldiers since time immemorial had been promised by their leaders over and over and over again.

To help facilitate “processing” while still accomplishing shit, Stiles let Steve review the binder he’d given him while pulling up Pandora on his uncle’s PS4 and coaching the super-soldier quickly on how the like/dislike options helped the platform predict and select additional music for your listening pleasure.

Really, it was the best way Stiles could think of to expose Steve to music he might like and would probably work a lot better than bombarding him with lists of songs and albums and artists.

There would already be enough of that due to the art, movies, television, and literature that comprised popular culture – and just culture in general – without dumping music into the quagmire.

Though now that he was actively working with Steve, he definitely saw why his uncle had been so confident Stiles wouldn’t ditch back to Beacon Hills as soon as he got his diploma in hand and his birthday came around.

He’d never liked leaving a job half-done.

And bringing Steve up to speed on the last seven decades and into the twenty-first century?

Now _that_ was going to be a job and a half.

Ten out of ten, would definitely keep him on his toes for the foreseeable future.

Plus…he got to hang out with _Captain Fucking America_.

How awesome was _that_?

Emotionally-charged, cynical rants aside.

…

“So, uh,” Stiles shifted a bit as he handed over a glass of protein shake – chocolate this time, even topped with chocolate sauce and whipped cream – to Steve.  If it weren’t for the bruised, wounded look in those puppy-dog-blue eyes he’d probably sit and stew on his own assholishness for a couple of days but he’d always been weak to the powers of wounded-puppy gaze.  And Steve’s was better than even Scott’s.  “I owe you an apology.  I didn’t mean to unload on you like that.”

Reaching out, Steve took the milkshake as the peace-offering it was and used one foot to nudge the barstool next to him away from the kitchen’s island.

Stiles plopped down next to him with minimum flailing in relief at the easy acceptance, sucking down his own protein concoction that was a startling green that Steve was treating with a serious side-eye thanks to the wheat grass and superfood powder he’d added this time along with apple, kiwi, and spinach.

“You mentioned your own war.”  Steve asked-without-asking for background or explanation or something since his first impressions of Stiles being mature beyond his age but still desperately _young_ hadn’t abated.  Though if he had been fighting for more than a year based on what he’d said earlier then the maturity at least – along with the shadows in his eyes – made more sense.

Mitch had been a good guy, one of the best soldiers he fought with and had a killer sense of dry humor, but he’d been older than Stiles was now when they met so he couldn’t say if that early maturity was a family trait or something specific to Stiles.

“Yeah,” Stiles played with his reusable rubbery straw – another teaching moment yesterday – and avoided those killer blue eyes. 

Steve was too damn pretty for Stiles’s own good.  Though for whatever reason – maybe knowing dude had just lost his entire life, or the girl he liked, or something like that – Stiles wasn’t really _attracted_ he just… _noticed_.  Like he would a nice painting or sculpture.  Steve had that same kind of untouchable – unreachable – perfection that if Stiles actually tried to go there he wasn’t sure he could keep from wanting to muss up.

With his own recent trauma…yeah.

Majorly bad idea all the way around, even if Steve – from all accounts and SHIELD was scary good at their job – wouldn’t have likely been interested anyway.

“I can’t tell you much of it, a lot of it is classified and there’s things even SHIELD doesn’t know.”  Stiles explained, feeling his way along as he went.  “But what I can say is that January of last year my best friend Scott and I went looking for a dead body in the forest surrounding the town where we lived and got involved in something that since has killed more than a dozen people and did a serious number on my head.”

He chuckled self-deprecatingly.  “Tomorrow while you’re doing some medical tests and performance evaluations, I’ll be having one of my fun conversations with Dr. Gothenburg.”

“Like you’ll be doing in the morning while I have my go, huh?”  Steve mused, shaking his head.  “Guess they paired us up for more than one reason.”

“At least your appointment is only an hour.”  Stiles blew out a heavy breath.  “Mine’s three.”

“Three?”  Steve blinked, craning his head a little until he could see – yep, he’d been right, that dark bitterness was there again turning amber eyes whiskey-dark.

“Three, twice a week.”

If the time allotted meant anything…Steve paused, thinking that over for long minutes as they finished their mid-morning snack of milkshakes.

Steve only had to see the doc for an hour twice a week and the man had made mention it might get knocked down to only once a week depending on how he adjusted to civilian life.

Yikes.

“I guess you were right.”  Steve said, leaning over and nudging Stiles’s shoulder with his own like Bucky woulda done for him when they were younger and Steve was down about his latest round of getting beat down by bullies.  “The war really doesn’t end just because a new treaty is signed.”

“No, no it doesn’t.”

…

Steve sat on the comfortable arm chair in Dr. Gothenburg’s office at the SHIELD base and struggled to keep from shifting in agitation.

Maybe it was all the time he’d spent in and out of doctor offices in his life but no matter how soothing or comfortable they were trying to make the psychiatrist’s place it wasn’t going to work very well on him.

“Well Captain Rogers,” Robert broke the silence seeing that his newest patient was likely to be even harder to help than his handler.  Though no one could possibly be as frustrating as Phil.  Wait, no, maybe Tony Stark.  Thank god that Fury hadn’t dumped _that_ mess of neuroses in his lap.  “How are you finding the twenty-first century?”

“Ah…we beat polio, so that’s good.”  He shrugged.  “Vaccines, medical advances, all amazing.”

He _may_ have had Stiles teach him how to use his “tablet” and filter internet searches for information he was interested in finding for himself instead of always having to rely on Stiles or one of the Agents.

Only a couple days in and he was frustrated at how heavily he relied on everyone around him.

He’d never liked being a burden and he certainly wasn’t going to start being one _now_ , through unexpected circumstances or not.

“I see.”  Robert took a note.  “What else have you liked thus far?”

“Well…”

…

Stiles had hit up the medics for his weekly weigh-in and exam, nearly dancing at the news that he could be cleared for his firearms assessment even if the more physical evals were still off the table when the comm he wore inside the base buzzed in his ear.

It was his uncle, summoning him down to the parking garage.

Safe to say that even with _Stiles’s_ imaginative abilities and skills at seeing/thinking around corners, even he couldn't have predicted what he found waiting for him.

Or who.

…

Parked in a visitor bay in the innocuous parking garage attached to the equally-innocuous office building in New York’s midtown Manhattan was a 1979 Jeep CJ7 with California plates.

If Stiles was honest, if it weren’t for those Cali plates stamped with a number he’d known since he was a kid, he wouldn’t have recognized _that_ CJ7 as _his_ CJ7.

As Roscoe.

It was like one of those ridiculous teen movies where the hidden-beauty gets a makeover and wows everyone who only barely recognized them after straightening their hair and getting contacts.

Only whoever had done Roscoe’s makeover had managed a helluva lot more than a few cosmetic changes.

And the man responsible, standing in designer jeans and shades in a band shirt with a leather jacket that probably cost more than Roscoe – pre-makeover anyway – couldn’t have looked anymore smug if he’d tried as he watched Stiles’s jaw drop and eyes pop wide with excited shock.

But then, considering it was Tony Stark himself in the flesh, that was pretty much par for the course.

Standing next to none other than _motherfucking Iron Man_ – and believe him they were going to have a _talk_ about that – and _chatting_ of all damn things was the likely culprit and mastermind behind the facelift and new lease on life his oldest friend had gotten, his Uncle Phil.

Who is a scheming schemer who schemes as if getting Stiles into his first-choice school and giving him a job helping a _literal hero_ weren’t enough now he’d hauled his beloved Jeep cross-county and had him overhauled.

Though at least maybe with the overhaul if Stiles _did_ decide to return to Beacon Hills Roscoe would at least survive the trip.

Which didn’t _matter_ when his uncle was throwing superheroes at him like party favors and pulling no punches with his bribes.

The conniving, _unbelievable_ , asshole.

How _dare he_ know him this well?!

Stiles didn’t know if he wanted to hug him or punch him or fuss over Roscoe so naturally he tried to do all three at once which managed to – at the very least – pull a loud, gleeful guffaw of a laugh out of Tony Stark, so, you know, perks to being a walking train wreck of a spark-kitsune hybrid.

“You’re an asshole, Uncle Phil, this is _definitely_ conniving above and beyond the call of duty and hitting below the belt all at the same time.”  Stiles flailed once he’d stopped clinging to his uncle in a half-hug with one arm and petting Roscoe’s shiny new powder-coated exterior paint job in the _exact same_ shade of baby blue but somehow not as screaming-eighties-tacky as it’d looked just a couple weeks ago back in California.  “No cool, dude.”

“So I take it this was more of a bribe and less of a present, hmm?”  Tony noted, pleased at the kid’s reaction even as the teenager – who for fuck’s sake was taller than him, _how was that fair_ – ooh’d and ahh’d and gushed over Tony’s magical ways of getting out dents, rust, and damage of many shapes and forms.

Stiles nodded resolutely, straightening up from hugging Roscoe’s hood, and offering his hand – finally – to the genius engineer.

Just because he’d never been seriously interested in STEM beyond school-reasons didn’t mean he didn’t _totally_ respect what the billionaire superhero was capable of doing with some scrap metal and his brain.

Case in point: the _Iron Man_ suit and now Roscoe’s revitalization.

“Dude, you have _no idea_.”  Stiles rolled his eyes exaggeratedly.  “Uncle Phil’s been clocking some _serious_ manipulative shenanigans to keep me in New York.  Even apparently convincing genius engineers to give my baby a facelift.  Hey, I’m Stiles.”

“Tony Stark,” Tony smirked, already liking the brat – height issue aside – as he made Agent-Agent roll his eyes and take on an expression that previously Tony thought only _he_ could pull from the buttoned-up SHIELD lackey.  Or Assistant Director.  Potato _po-tah-toe._   “Want to see what I did for her?”

“Him.”  Stiles corrected him firmly even as he nodded and waved his arm in an _after you_ motion.  “His name’s Roscoe.”

“Really?”  Tony blinked and arched a brow then dismissed it for later consideration.  “Interesting.  So, here’s the rundown…”

And what a rundown it was.

Stiles had been right, Tony _had_ used a powder-coat technique on the exterior – but only _after_ completely shoring up the frame with an alloy to strengthen it without losing any of the famed Jeep rock-crawling flexibility that kept it from being permanently damaged during certain types of off-road maneuvers.  All the electronic components had been pulled and upgraded.  The body itself replaced with yet _another_ metal alloy for strength and durability – and yes, Tony had managed to design and install a retractable hard-top that slid down into hidden compartments in the vehicle doors and walls without completely weighing "Roscoe" down.  He’d added a specialty collision-safety system that was – according to the genius – was decades better tech than mere air-bags, put in new leather seats – the middle console of which retracted to show a hidden secured cache – _for whatever, Agent-Agent’s your uncle, I don’t judge_ – that Stiles was totes going to use to store some of his magic supplies and weapons he wasn’t supposed to have, and gave him an in-dash heads-up display that he’d only seen similar designs in cars that cost seven-figures.

Or were concept cars designed by the likes of Tony Stark.

Apparently when the genius had a favor called in he didn’t stint on the payout.

Roscoe was now the proud owner of an engine that would do everything short of tuck him into bed at night and an integrated electronics system that just might.

It was mind-blowing and way too much and had his uncle rolling his eyes, groaning, scoffing, and threatening to tase Iron Man.

Naturally, Stiles loved it and his sheer joy had _for the love of physics kid, call me Tony_ , all but rolling around in pleasure at _his_ pleasure.

There was definite preening to say the least.

A lot of gloating.

And more than a smidge of genuine enjoyment at Stiles’s excitement over his work.

Phil sighed, rubbing his hand over his forehead in exasperation.

“This is too much, Stark.”  He told the frustrating pain-in-his-ass.  “I asked Pepper for a tune-up, some wrench work, maybe a new paint job not… _that_.”  He waved over to where Stiles was all but quivering in ecstatic joy as he played with the HUD from the driver’s seat.

“Call it a birthday present from one troubled genius to another.”  Tony brushed off Phil’s protests – at least half of which were for form since he knew the other man wouldn’t seriously debate over anything that would keep the kid safer – without hesitation.

“You hacked his file.”

“Really Agent?”  Tony rolled his eyes in exasperation.  “It’s like you don’t know me _at all_.  Of course I did, JARVIS was on it as soon as _Roscoe_ there was delivered and Pep told me who the favor was for and what it entailed.  He’s got a good heart, that’s easy enough to see, but the kind of trauma Doc Goth dances around in his prognosis isn’t the sort of thing you just shake off.  Would be a shame to have someone with his potential smothered before he can really come into his own, don’t you think?”

“And the best place for him to succeed is in New York.”  Phil inclined his head, conceding.  “That _is_ rather the whole point of his move, Stark.  His father and I know what we’re doing.”

“I couldn’t – somehow and now it’s a challenge so you better _believe_ I’m going to find it eventually – locate the details on what _exactly_ he’s doing for SHIELD under the terms of his internship.”  Tony noted, pursing his lips as he watched the kid who’d been polite, excited, energetic, and asked intelligent questions.

All while being a clever, snarky little shit.

Needless to say: Tony liked him immediately and got the feeling it was returned and more because he was _Tony_ and not Mr. Stark or Iron Man though there was certainly a measure of respect in the kid for those aspects of him as well.

“But,” Tony clucked his tongue as his ride rolled up with Happy at the wheel.  Duty – and Pep’s summons to do his job – called.  “If Nicky gets too pushy over Stiles joining his legion of spies or whatever-he’s-doing starts going south, call me.”  He lowered his chin, looking at Agent-Agent over the upper-rim of his shades as Agent-Agent opened the door for him to the limo.  “Seriously.  No favors required, I’ll find something for him at Stark Industries and cover the same tuition agreement he has with SHIELD plus a stipend.”

“And that offer has nothing to do with issues pertaining to _mirrors_ does it, Mr. Stark?”

“Have a good day, Agent Coulson.”

“Mr. Stark.”

“Bye Tony!”  Stiles shouted from inside Roscoe where he had the now-retractable hard-top lowered and was waving frantically.  “Thanks again!”

“See ya, kid.  Text me, friend me, you know the drill.”

“Awesome.”  Stiles breathed out, letting loose of his inner fanboy now that _Tony motherfucking Stark_ wasn’t there to watch him lose his damn mind over what had just happened to him.  “I swear to god, Uncle Phil, best day of my _life_.  Tony Stark pimped my ride.  I love you, you’re awesome, even if you _are_ a cheating cheater who cheats.”

Phil reached in and scruffed his nephew good naturedly.

“You’re welcome, Mieszko.  Now, lock it up.”  His wave encompassed the Jeep.  “I believe you’re due to meet Captain Rogers in ten at the firearms range for both your evaluations.”

“You’re not subtle, Uncle Phil.”  Stiles sighed, arching a brow as he climbed out of the Jeep and hit the series of buttons on his key fob – because Roscoe was now keyless everything and controlled as much by his new StarkPhone – which somehow had his old personal phone’s SIM information and contacts and _how?!_ That had been waiting in the cradle inset in the dash as it was by the fob on his keys. A new StarkPhone that wasn't to be confused with the one issued to him by SHIELD for his SHIELD work (read: wrangling Captain America.)

“Oh?”  Phil asked with a church-angel-innocent expression on his plain-but-handsome face.  As if he wasn’t _completely_ maneuvering his nephew into a position to be the official liaison between SHIELD and the Avengers Initiative if Nick ever managed to get it off the ground in the first place.  “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Whatever, Uncle Phil.”  Stiles rolled his eyes, heading with the older man in tow for the elevator to hop off at the firearms training and armory floor of the base.  “I’m not going to argue with you since every time I turn around you’re throwing a superhero or a bribe at my head.  I turn eighteen in a little over two months and will have my diploma by then so just…keep that in mind in case I don’t jump at the chance to join up with the spook brigade.”

“Well, that still gives me a little over two months to convince you to relocate permanently to New York then, doesn’t it?”

“If you try and set me up on a date, I’m going back to Beacon Hills on the next _flight_ ,” Stiles warned, eyes narrowed at that far-too-placid look his uncle was rocking.  “Deal or no deal.”

“ _Mieszko,_ ” Phil widened his eyes and mock-gasped at the very _suggestion_.  “I would _never!_...Do you still favor scary redheads by any chance…?”

“ _Uncle Phil!  No!  Bad uncle!  Bad!”_

Phil would deny that the sound he made in the face of his nephew’s mortification as the elevator doors slid shut on the firearms floor to take Phil up to his office was a _cackle_ but as his nephew had said more than once: he's a lying liar who lies.

…

“You know.”  Nick commented, having returned to the New York base to observe the Captain’s first round of evaluations and catching the burgeoning Stiles-and-Steve show while he was at it as the pair stripped down side-arms, rifles, and shotguns then assembled them with Hawkeye watching over them and timing them, Steve stepping in to help his younger companion on some of the bigger assault rifles while Stiles returned the favor with a few of the newer models he was familiar with.  “The more we watch your nephew the less your objections to him joining SHIELD ring true.  Partnering him up with the Captain, maneuvering him into an introduction with Stark, growing friendship with Hawkeye.  So far you’re three out of five for the earmarked possible Avengers and I’m sure you’ll add to that number once Romanoff returns.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Nick.”  Phil said nonchalantly, a brief smile flickering over his face as Mieszko’s hands nearly _flew_ through assembling a Glock 17 then fired a pair of tight clusters – less than a two-inch grouping, impressive for a civilian – at the paper target’s head and heart.

This was only part of the firearms evaluations, there was an active targeting component as well, but so far Stiles had been keeping neck-and-neck with the super-solider and earning himself a rare impressed arch of his lover’s brows.

When it came to marksmanship, there was no one harder to please than Clint Barton.

“My question then becomes,” Nick continued, feeling a bit impressed himself as Stilinski bested Roger’s time on the Desert Eagle range they had: one after another from the .357 on down the line to the fifty-caliber.  “Are you setting him up to be their handler…or another member?”

“Now I _really_ don’t know what you mean, Nick.”  Phil’s voice froze over in a split second as he slowly turned his head and gaze from the range below them to stare at his friend’s – and the Director of SHIELD’s – profile.  “Stiles doesn’t fit the profile for the Avengers Initiative.”

“Really?”  Nick scoffed, turning as well to face off against his second in command.  “How certain of that are you?”  He tilted his head slightly gesturing to the pair blazing through the firearms evaluation under the stringent hand of Hawkeye.  “Because I’m not, not anymore.”

“Stiles is _seventeen_ ,” Phil’s eyes flashed, every line of his face and body warning his friend and boss to tread carefully.  To choose his next words wisely.  “You’ve seen the gaps he filled in on Beacon Hills.  He’s been through _hell_ over the last sixteen months, has never even had a _girlfriend_ , and you want to recruit him for the _Avengers Initiative?”_

“I suppose that answers that question, doesn’t it.”  Nick smirked, even as Phil let out a hissing breath in an attempt to contain his – pun intended – _fury_.  “What have we always said about the Initiative, Phil?  Take remarkable people and bring them together in the hope that they become something _more_.”  He raised his brows in mock-incredulity.  “Are you going to stand there and try and tell me that _your nephew_ , the only grandson of “Mischief Mitch” of the Howling Commandos, survivor of – as you said – hell on earth, _isn’t_ remarkable to the same standards as the likes of _Tony Stark_?”

If Stiles were present and not laughing down below them with Cap and Clint as the rookie agents reset the floor for the moving-target portion of the eval, he would’ve been looking around for the wolf that made the growl coming from his uncle’s chest, so dead-on-the-money was it for Derek at his most aggravated with Scott’s bullshit.

“That line won’t work on me, Nick.”  Phil reminded him, shoulders squaring as he crossed his arms over his chest, the very image of _unimpressed and done with your shit_.  “I wrote it, remember?  What I’m saying – what I have been trying to make clear all along – is not about his _capability_ , Director Fury but rather about his responsibility.  Of which there is none.  He is a _teenager_.  He is _not_ responsible for fighting the battles that normal assets can’t handle.  That he _is_ capable of it is written in every “Alive” status on the Beacon Hills file.  That he _doesn’t have to_ is why he was sent to me in the first place and I _will_ do everything in my power to make sure that he stays well _away_ from the battles that children shouldn’t be fighting in the first place.”

Phil spun to storm off – and cool off – down to the range and hopefully have lunch with the others before taking over for Captain Roger’s other evaluations while his nephew was with Robert when his friend’s voice carried out to him and had him pausing.

“If you read the same file as I did, now that Romanoff has added her observations to it, both on your nephew and Beacon Hills, then you know as well as I do that he hasn’t been a child since last January.  And he won’t thank you for treating him as such.”

“Still my nephew, Nick.  Still my call.”

“Only for another seventy days.”

“Then we can revisit the subject in sixty-nine days, Nick, and not a moment beforehand.”

…

Stiles braced himself, hands tightening around the leather steering wheel – Roscoe was so _responsive_ now, it was great and trippy all at the same time and he was reasonably sure that Tony Stark had installed at least a dozen different versions of trackers and spy ware but found himself okay with that – taking a deep breath then stepping out of his Jeep and into the parking garage the HUD had directed him towards, Steve watching him in concerned-amusement from where he stood leaning against the passenger door while Stiles handled his shit.

“You okay there, Stiles?”  Steve asked, entertained despite himself.  “I thought this was supposed to be an exercise in working on _my_ crowd tolerance, not yours.”

“What can I say?”  He chuckled darkly, smiling ruefully.  “Doc likes to get the most bang for his buck.”

Steve frowned lightly a moment, prompting Stiles to explain – even if it required a quick Google for coherency – the idiom.

Sometimes in the last five days they could go all day without running into a vocab issue.

Sometimes Stiles was explaining idioms, jargon, and various nomenclature all day and so far today was shaping up to be one of those days as they’d left after breakfast at the brownstone to brave the Thursday traffic and shoppers to get Steve set up with necessities.

Like his own choice of personal care necessities and that wardrobe they would be putting on SHIELD’s tab.

But Stiles had been tense since the previous afternoon when his uncle Phil had shown up towards the end of their firearms eval looking like thunder was going to crack over his head any second and had Clint squirreling him away as soon as they got home so no innocent nephews or national treasures were harmed in the backlash of the normally-mild-mannered but extremely _dangerous_ nonetheless man’s temper.

 _Something_ had gone down at SHIELD yesterday between Tony Stark dropping off Roscoe and Stiles finishing his firearms-evaluation with mostly-flying colors thanks to (as he’d had to remind both Clint and Steve) a pair of Army vet grandpas, Ranger dad and uncle, sheriff dad, and agent uncle.

That the supernaturally-inclined element of Beacon Hills _still_ believed that he’d sooner shoot himself in the foot than know how to handle a gun was both entertaining and tremendously insulting.

To both him and his dad when he thought about it.

As _if_ a man as dedicated to justice and public safety would let his kid be around guns all his life and _not_ teach him how to be at least safe around them if not decently proficient.

But then, from what Stiles had seen and experienced for himself, a lot of supes tended to be condescending dickwads regarding vanilla-humans, even if they were bitten, turned, or some other classification of former-human themselves.

“Crowds aren’t the issue.”  Stiles sighed, rubbing one hand over his face half out of tiredness and half out of a desire to block his view of far-too-understanding eyes watching him.

“Bad night?”

Since Stiles’s rant and subsequent apology and admission of being under Dr. Gothenburg’s care, Steve had been watching his young handler carefully, seeing more than a few ticks he’d known from the war in guys rescued or who’d served on the front.

Seeing things he saw in the mirror every day.

Stiles had shell-shock, PTSD as the modern doc called it, and Steve was all-too-familiar with the toll that particular soldier’s malady could take on the mind and body alike.

To say nothing of the soul.

Stiles chuckled again, brighter this time, shaking his head and – hopefully – shaking off part of his off-center mood.

“Partly.  The other part is I _really_ don’t like clothes shopping and Uncle Phil had a few things to say about the content of my wardrobe since I was going to be taking you already.”  Squaring his shoulders, Stiles locked Roscoe then stepped up beside Steve and steered him over towards the lit signage for the elevator to the sky walk.  No more of that.  They had an appointment to keep.  “C’mon.  There’s a pair of helpful souls waiting to help us get you outfitted to your taste and earn a hefty commission in the process.”

“Where’re you taking me, Stiles?”  Steve asked, half in confusion and half good-humor.

“Saks, per my uncle, and we are to return with both of us having at least two good suits or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Steve winced, not really looking forward to that kinda involved fitting himself.

Though at least if he was involved in anything formal SHIELD had gotten his dress blues – or a replica he wasn’t certain – sent over to the brownstone and they were now hanging in his closet so he wouldn’t have to sit through _that_ level of a fitting.

Still: orders were orders.

And at least they would have help since from what he could tell – and yes, he understood some of Agent Coulson’s frustration with his nephew’s attire – Stiles tended to either wear SHIELD-issue tactical pants with high-necked/long-sleeved shirts, denims that had seen better years, and a parade of short-sleeved knit shirts with a plaid long-sleeve on top of it without fail.

As much as he liked the kid…he was going to pass on coming out of this hurdle towards independence looking like his taller, broader, blonder, clone.

…

It was a few days, an improved and/or expanded wardrobe for both of them, another round of evaluations while Stiles was at his second appointment with Dr. Gothenburg, and a slowly expanding sense of trust and companionship towards the younger man that Steve found himself pacing the hallway on their floor of the brownstone at three A.M. when he heard a faint noise that sounded like distress come from Stiles’s room.

He listened with every bit of focus he possessed for a long moment only to hear an unnerving aura of silence from a person that even in deep sleep – such as passed out during what Stiles had called a “docu-drama” called _Argo_ that afternoon – rarely was any form of _unintentionally_ quiet.

Making a decision, Steve lightly knocked on Stiles’s door which would wake up either of them with their issues regarding what both Stiles and the doctor called _hypervigilance_ and waited several ticks of his heart for an answer from his…

From his _friend_.

But there was nothing, sending dread coursing down his spine for whatever night terror might have Stiles looked away in his own head, Steve slowly opening the door in case he was wrong and poking his head inside the dimly-lit room.

Unfortunately for Steve what he found was hardly the thing to settle his riled instincts.

As rather than his new friend, Steve found nothing at all but a desk piled with laptop and books and open notebooks and an unmade bed.

Stiles was nowhere to be found.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edited on 11 July 2019 for a major continuity error regarding Stiles's tails and fox habit.

** Fire on Fire **

**Chapter Eight: Cunning as a Fox**

It was a normal, average April day when Zuri felt it.

Felt the connection between himself and his sibling snap as if it had never been.

And on that day, a light kitsune who found joy in the tricks and cunning of politics and spy games and royal courts, began to plan.

“My Princess, have you continued your work on vibranium-nanite technology?”

Shuri rolled her eyes and scoffed at the very _idea_ she would stop work on such an advancement for all that her father and brother preferred _old_ tech for their Panther Habits.

“Of course.”

“Would you show me?”

…

_Unfortunately for Steve what he found was hardly the thing to settle his riled instincts._

_As rather than his new friend, Steve found nothing at all but a desk piled with laptop and books and open notebooks and an unmade bed._

_Stiles was nowhere to be found._

_…_

It took a month for the pull calling out to him from the East to have Stiles go rifling through the memories he’d been slowly harvesting for knowledge and information for an answer to the distinct _itch_ at the back of his mind.

There was no emotional attachment to the memories copied from the mental links he’d had – for however short a time – with others anymore than he formed an emotional attachment to a movie.

Some second-hand emotions for scenes particularly heartbreaking or terrifying or horrific.

But nothing _his_.

Nothing that managed to push beyond the mental-logical boundaries of his memory palace which was an excellent thing considering he had enough mental issues without adding over a thousand years of trauma – like say, being burned alive, _twice_ – to the morass.

Knowledge, memory, information all being parsed for content and integrated for his active, instinctual use, it was good to be Stiles with his unique cocktail of power wedded to knowledge married to imagination.

Despite the _price_ he’d paid for much of his newer knowledge sources.

He wouldn’t be volunteering to get possessed anytime soon, that was certain, and as soon as he found a tattoo artist willing to work on him despite being underage or he turned eighteen he was going to take care of that possible “open door” permanently and any Alpha werewolves out there could keep their claws out of his spinal cord _thank-you-very-much_.

Stiles beat a Nogitsune and become a strange hybrid.

That didn’t mean another wouldn’t _try_ him considering how tempting he’d been to the Nogitsune with a spark alone.

Or that there weren’t other creatures and beings capable of trying to make him their meat puppet.

It was a fear he didn’t know if he’d ever be able to defeat, easily tumbling down his former greatest fear of losing his father due to if he ever wound up _evil_ again even just by proxy his family was likely the first place they’d hit.

That there was something _left_ in him that was capable of influencing him – even in the slightest way – from the Nogitsune?

Well that _shit_ was not going to fly.

Slow learning curve on the whole kitsune-thing or not, once he dug through the evil fucker’s memories and found what was _calling_ to the power he’d made his own, he was enraged to the killing point.

Third-world country or not, Wakanda here he fucking comes.

…

“To be without true form.”

The voice was deep and raspy, filled with a heavy sense of age and wisdom as Stiles stepped from the shadows of the room containing that which had called to him more and more as he integrated the knowledge of the Nogitsune and tried – as best he could alone – to integrate his new kitsune powers to his fully-awakened spark.

That his uncle had swooped in with a project to keep him from obsessing over returning to Beacon Hills had become both blessing and trial as it took time – helping _Steve_ took time – that could have been used in other ways.

Ways leading to him not being bossed around by an instinct he couldn’t understand even as he realized the source of it.

The link between first the Nogitsune and now himself, and the cunning old fox standing at a window looking out over the Wakandan countryside.

Though as Stiles looked around, he found far less evidence of being in a poor African nation and far more of a cleverly spun and long-maintained lie – a trick, as it were, on the rest of the world – in the technology humming all around him.

“That is the price one of us must pay in order to forsake our path and instead become Nogitsune.  To be limited in form and shape and vessel, forced to rely upon summons and possession to act within the world in exchange for shedding the weakness of our tails possessing physical form.  That is the way of the Nogitsune.”  The kitsune in the guise of a late-middle-aged African man turned from the view to face his visitor.  “Legend says that in order to keep the natural order when kitsune kits are born twinned that one will always forsake our ways, fear the destruction of their power and turn Nogitsune.  And so it was for my twin.  To save my life they sacrificed their oldest and most powerful tail but it warped them.  Changed them.  Fear for the first time – true fear – took root in their _self_ at the loss.  But legend speaks of another consequence of the natural order wishing to right itself of which possession is in defiance of.”

“A host being freed without death.”

“More than freed.”  He was corrected with soft words and a softer smile.  Considering who it was coming from Stiles didn’t trust it for a second.  “Mortal combat is an ancient ritual, steeped in old power.  Only one host in a millennium or longer manages to succeed in such a thing against so powerful a foe as a Nogitsune.  So long has it been since the last that I cannot recall the name of either the host nor who their Nogitsune was before they became a warped fear-driven creature.  And yet,” a deep nod.  “Here you stand.  Still strong.  Still fighting.  Still yourself.”

“It was never _about_ myself,” Stiles corrected.  “Though you’re not the first to make that mistake and I doubt you’ll be the last.  It threatened what was _mine_.  Tried to take _my_ power and use it as a weapon against those few I care about.  Now _that_ I couldn’t let stand.”

“ _Zenko kukan kitsune_.”  Zuri named him as what he was, though _who_ the kit was to his mind was just as interesting.  As well as who he’d chosen – from the monitoring he was doing of the situation – to ally himself with.  “The dark to my light; shadow to sunshine.  But just a kit, still, in need of training before the power you claimed as your own warps or burns you out as no human body was made to contain it.”

“Why would you help me?”  Stiles asked, brows furrowed.  “If I’m reading you right then I killed your twin.  I figured you were using the latent link I absorbed with the kitsune power to call me here to kill me.”

“And yet you came anyway.”

“Well, yeah.”  Stiles blinked.  “The itch in the back of my head was fucking annoying, even with blocking it off using my shields.  You’re a persistent asshole that way which seems to be a kitsune trait.”

“Indeed.”  Zuri noted, dryly.  “As I said: a kit in need of training but the power burning through you is of the most immediate concern.  You completed a task that should have been mine were I strong or brave enough to see it done rather than running away to a young country forming thousands of miles away from my home to bury myself in its intrigues and cunning lies.  In return I offer my help to satisfy the debt on my honor these events have left in their wake.”

“Okay,” Stiles shrugged, rocking back and forth on his heels now that it seemed old kitsune dude was more interested in playing Yoda than going dark side after vengeance and that lofty notions of _honor_ and paying debts wasn’t only a Noshiko thing but a kitsune culture thing.  Good to know even if he thought it was a bunch of bullshit.

But that was why he was a _neutral_ kitsune-spark-hybrid not a _good_ kitsune-spark-hybrid.

“How’s that going to work?  I’d rather SHIELD _not_ find out about any of my non-vanilla-human traits and abilities and disappearing for however-long kitsune bootcamp would take isn’t exactly in the cards.”

Zuri chuckled, entertained by the young kit and easily able to see – even in their madness – what had drawn his sibling to them over a host that would be simple to subjugate.

“You’re not going to be having very restful nights from now on.”  Zuri promised him with a smirk as the kit groaned, shoulders slumping.  “Stabilizing your body and powers is one matter, training you another.  For the former we will need at least a day and night but until you can acquire such a span of time out from watchful eyes you will return here every night to train.”

“Oh goody.”  Stiles snarked under his breath despite knowing that the other kitsune could hear him regardless.  “Just what I always wanted instead of sleep.  More school.”

“You killed my twin.”  Zuri told him repressively.  “I may respect the strength and power and resolve required in doing so for a host, I may honor the debt that is owed, but be certain that this time will bring me no more joy than it does you and I will be _significantly_ happier than yourself once you are stabilized and no longer in danger from becoming a monster far worse than the one you conquered.”

Stiles ruthlessly stomped down on the desire to take a step back and away from the glowering fox as his aura flared bright and white and filled with power around that deceptively aged and soft body.

He swallowed.

Message sent and very fucking received.

He’d bring his A-game and then – fascinating mystery surrounding what he was starting to think was the biggest fucking _lie_ in the world – he’d gladly never step foot in Wakanda ever again so long as Zuri claimed it as his territory.

“When do we start?”

“When else?”  Zuri arched a brow, controlling his oppressive aura with effortless ease.  “Now.”

…

For an endless moment as Steve stared into the empty room he was locked in a state of mindless panic.

Which, as it turned out, was a good thing as it gave him that time while his minds was shrieking to catalog the room and note a few key details.

Like that the room was pristine without a single thing out of place – or rather, not out of place in the usual sprawl and detritus of a teenaged boy – showing no sign of a struggle or abduction down to the haphazard array of papers and pens and books and laptop on the desk.

No, once his brain kicked back on, Steve was in the majority rather certain that wherever Stiles was and why he wasn’t in his room, he’d gone there willingly and without alerting the rest of the house.

He hoped.

And on the back of that hope, Steve stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, intending to sit tight and wait.

He’d give Stiles until breakfast to show back up.

But if he _wasn’t_ back by then, hopefully sneaking back in the time-honored tradition of teenagers everywhere, there would be hell to pay.

To that end, Steve snagged a blank pad of paper and a couple of pencils from Stiles’s collection on the desk, propped himself back against the headboard of the kid’s king-sized bed, and settled in for a long wait.

On the bright side: at least he wasn’t hearing screams and gunfire anymore.

…

Stiles was bone-deep exhausted after only two hours of “training” with a supposedly- _good_ ancient kitsune that he was suspicious had a hidden evil streak a mile wide when he stepped into shadows in Wakanda and stepped out of the shadows in his bedroom in New York.

Which – in his opinion – excused the dangerous lapse of stepping out into an _occupied_ room as one, see above regarding exhaustion, and two _it was his room_.

It was his room at five in the morning with the sun just starting to rise and lighten the city and it _should have been_ empty.

He figured that while most people would give him a pass under the circumstances, he _did_ live with a couple of spies – sorry _, Agents_ – and a super-soldier whose PTSD was probably as damaging to his sleep-cycles as Stiles’s own so privacy wasn’t always a guarantee.

He _should_ have checked no matter his assumptions.

But he didn’t.

And now he had a boggled Captain America starting at him like Stiles had come up to him and slapped him in the face with a wet fish.

Comical but, yeah, _not good_.

Slumping in place because, seriously, would this night _ever_ end, Stiles sighed and rubbed one hand over his eyes before looking his eyes on the confused baby-blue’s of his new friend before motioning to his ears then placing a finger over his lips in the generally-accepted signal for silence.

“Thanks for staying with me Steve.”  He piped up after the soldier nodded and rose from reclining on his bed.  “That last nightmare threw me for a loop.”

He stared meaningfully at the other man who arched a brow and looked distinctly unimpressed for a moment before rolling his eyes and setting the pad and pencils he held aside on the bedside table, a stern look promising that he _would_ get answers but was still willing to drop it – for now – since Stiles was right.

They lived with a pair of spies.

Neither of them could be guaranteed that if they talked about Stiles’s little escapade it wouldn’t be overheard.

“No problem, Stiles.”  Then he smirked at the younger man who’d almost turned into a puddle of relief as he shrugged out of his jacket.  “We can talk more about it over coffee after Mass.”

That relieved look quickly turned betrayed as Steve turned and let himself out of Stiles’s room.

Good play, Cap.  Stiles shook his head.  Good play.

Now he just had to figure out what the fuck he was going to tell him over that coffee and – hopefully – out of earshot of SHIELD.

…

It was a Sunday morning, Stiles had gotten a grand-total of three hours of sleep before suffering through Mass at Steve’s side, and if he didn’t get a large caramel mocha and a blueberry muffin someone was going to die.

Probably Steve, even though the other guy was just trying to be a good friend – from what he could tell – by checking up on Stiles and was punishing him, mildly in his opinion and cruelly in Stiles’s, for worrying him by first disappearing from his room and then reappearing without any warning.

Stiles got it, okay?

That didn’t make him any _less_ grumpy at the overarching situation but it did at least keep him from lashing out.

So far anyway.

Even if he’d kinda kill for a nap.

Or for caffeine to still work now that he had a supernaturally-charged metabolism to go with the rest of his kitsune upgrade package.

One which he fully intended on taking once they have their talk, Steve is sworn to secrecy, and they made it back to the brownstone for lunch, milkshakes, and a Disney marathon.

Obviously fighting between his ongoing mix of concern-tinged-curiosity and flat-out amusement over his grumpiness, Steve finally relented after Mass and towed him into a café for rations before hauling him out to a small, quiet park for the talk that Steve had been all-but-itching to have all through the morning, sleep being out of the question once he’d stumbled – innocently, but still – on the fact that his new friend wasn’t _quite_ the normal – if damaged – teenager he projected himself as to everyone around him.

Even, or so it seemed, his uncle, uncle’s boyfriend, and their employer.

Though given how closely the docs and medics and agents at SHIELD all watched _Steve_ – and they knew what his “deal” was even if how it worked had been lost along with Dr. Erskine – he didn’t know that he blamed Stiles for his paranoia over SHIELD knowing whatever it was that allowed him to seemingly appear, and disappear he would guess, out of thin air.

They walked at a fast clip that Stiles had no issue keeping up with around the park in an unpredictable pattern, doing pretty much anything Steve could think of to keep their conversation from being overheard though as he came to find out, that wasn’t as required as he’d thought once Stiles explained it all, because _magic_ , finding Steve a not-as-skeptical-as-he’d-thought-he’d-be-audience.

“Ask.”  Stiles said once they’d gotten a decent distance into the park and away from the streets and surrounding buildings.  More to block lipreading than anything since as his spark worked on _belief_ and _will_ instead of set spells and he _believed_ that their conversation wouldn’t be overheard they should – in theory – be safe according to everything he’d read and Zuri had to say on the matter.

Which given that the Nogitsune had _only been_ the Nogitsune for a thousand years and hadn’t been counting all the years before that when it had been _zenko kukan_ as Stiles now was, Zuri had collected a _lot_ of knowledge over the years as he’d not spent the last millennium in the _Spirit Realm_ or whatever-the-fuck they called it between summonings like their now-deceased twin.

Zuri – and therefore his twin – was _much_ older than the Nogitsune had claimed, which cleared up some of Stiles’s lingering confusion over some of the memories and knowledge he now possessed since trying to _date_ anything in a memory not your own was difficult as fuck without context or staring at a calendar the whole time in-memory.

“How did you just appear this morning and why don’t you want anyone to know?”

“Short answer or long?”

“Since we probably have about ten minutes before whatever agent they have on us gets close enough to overhear let’s start with short and you can fill in the rest as you can.”  Steve decided, brow lightly furrowed.

“Okay.”  Stiles shrugged, not bothered as much as he thought he’d be over sharing his secret.  Probably because it was _Steve_ and imaging him betraying anyone’s confidence was ludicrous both from his reputation and the stories his Grandpa Mitch would tell about the members of the Howling Commandos.  “Those battles I fought?  All involved people who were in one form or another supernatural.  Werewolves, kitsune, banshee, druids, kanima, Nogitsune, werecoyotes, and of course,” the quirk of his lips was far too bitter to be a smile, even a mocking one.  “Those that hunt them.”

Steve blinked but wasn’t entirely surprised.

“That makes some of what I saw during the war and the experiments HYDRA was running make a _lot_ more sense.”  He decided.  “What about mutants?”  He asked, having known a few in the past and read up on the ever-growing phenomenon in one of his SHIELD dossiers that kept getting tossed his way by Stiles or Agent Coulson.

“Nope.”  Stiles shook his head.  “The people who are _other_ tend to either be vanilla-human who learned to access their natural magics like druids or were born or changed into a supe.  Mutants are something else, something _new_ , comparatively speaking to the many species of the supernatural though some supe species can interbreed with humans and maybe mutants now that they’re a thing.”

Which was honestly kinda terrifying if the X-gene managed to interact with the were-gene and spit out a werewolf or other werecreature with mutant abilities stacked on top.

Yikes.

Sometimes Stiles _hated_ his imagination when it spit out new nightmare fuel.

Deucalion or Kali with laser vision or telekinesis was going to haunt his sleeping mind for at least a week.

“What are you then?”  Steve cut to the heart of the matter.

“Originally I was vanilla-human, nothing but a hundred and forty-seven pounds of pale skin, fragile bone, and sarcasm tossed head-first into a world that I never even _dreamed_ was real.”  Stiles sighed, more than a little wistful for the days where the only thing he had to worry about was Harris being an asshole in Chem, or Lydia ignoring his existence.  Good times.  _Easy_ times.  “Then just over seven months ago now, we defeated latest big bad drawn to Beacon Hills and unleashed something…”  His jaw clicked closed, tensing and releasing for several moments before he was able to finish the explanation.  “That decided a vanilla-human with a wicked mind, the ability to use natural human magics, and a connection to a mystical beacon was what it wanted to wear to the prom.”

“Are,” Steve scowled, almost grinding to a halt before a firm – and fierce – look from whiskey eyes kept him, and his mind, moving.  “Are you talking about possession?”  He asked once he was able to parse through the idiom and vocab to the meaning of Stiles’s words.

“Uh huh.”  Stiles nodded, once, jerkily and refused to look anywhere but directly ahead.  “Spent months fighting that asshole only for a kitsune who thought she knew everything and had all the answers to show up, summoning and controlling Japanese amoral demons to hunt the demon possessing me, and riling it right up.  He fucked with my head, made me think I was going crazy, and used me to hurt most everyone I care about.  In the end, with help, I ejected it and then killed it but that sort of thing isn’t without consequences.”

“It left you with more than scars and PTSD didn’t it?”  Steve asked quietly, putting the pieces together even as they returned to the starting point of their walk and headed towards the Jeep.

“Oh yeah.”  Stiles lifted his brows in bemusement.  “A _lot_ more.  And I need training for it so last night I went to someone who agreed to help with that.  But I have no intention of being forced or manipulated into being one of SHIELD’s _assets_.  The less they know – about all of it – the safer I am.”  His smiled was more than a bit bitter.  “I’ve taken hiding in plain sight to a new level since coming to New York.”

“But…”

“My uncle?”  Stiles shook his head, unlocking Roscoe and climbing into the driver’s seat as Steve jogged around the hood and jumped in next to him on the bench seat.  “I have a policy of _not_ putting the people I love in impossible ethical dilemmas if at all possible.”

Stiles knew Uncle Phil would choose him.

He didn’t doubt that for a moment.

That didn’t mean he ever wanted the older man to _ever_ be put into a position where he _had_ to side with Stiles over SHIELD.

“Huh.”  Steve pondered that a moment then shrugged.  He could respect that even if he didn’t totally agree.  In the end it all came down to one thing, something Stiles had been trying to pound into his head almost from the moment they met.  “Your life, your choice but this isn’t the last conversation we’re going to have on this topic and what you can do.”

Steve couldn’t protect his friend if he didn’t know what he needed to protect him _from_ or what form that protection needed to take.

“I figured.  Friends?”

“Of course.”

“Awesome.”

…

The fact that his Uncle Phil drew the line at _totally_ invading his privacy – and that of Steve – by refusing (he assumed, since Director Fury didn’t seem like the type to respect _anything_ that kept him from gathering more information) to allow bedrooms and bathrooms in the brownstone to be bugged made Stiles’s life once kitsune-training became part of it _much_ easier.

He didn’t have to worry about trying to hack video or audio feeds to loop footage or finding blind spots to disappear from.

No, he could just lock his bedroom door – which he’d done every night after Steve’s inadvertent outing of Stiles as a supernatural creature – before stepping between New York and Wakanda for his nightly dose of Grumpy-Fox-Yoda.

Who kept putting off his questions about how they were going to stabilize him with vague answers that rang his bullshit-o-meter.

Stiles’s wasn’t _new_ to being around tricksy assholes.

He _was_ a tricksy asshole and had been long before a Nogitsune decided he would make a fabulous person-tuxedo.

Stiles would bet Roscoe in all his new-and-improved glory that Zuri already _knew_ what needed to be done he just _wasn’t_ bringing it up for whatever reason.

Though it didn’t take a genius to figure out what the reason was.

Stiles was being tested with every training exercise that Zuri threw at him as the ancient kitsune worked at discovering just _where_ his powers laid thanks to Stiles not being a carbon copy of his defeated twin.

No two kitsune were the same as another, apparently, including the form their powers took.

And then there was his spark muddying the waters even further.

Making Stiles something else.

Something _new_.

Zuri wanted to figure out what made him _tick_ before fulfilling the terms of their agreement and his debt to Stiles being paid – and therefore Stiles taking off permanently since Zuri had never, directly, done anything to piss him off and Stiles unless given reason wasn’t one for grinding salt into open wounds suck as Zuri’s failures regarding his twin – whether out of sheer curiosity or to factor him into future plans and plotting Stiles couldn’t be totally certain though he’d bet it was both and likely a dozen other things that Stiles just wasn’t familiar enough with either Zuri or kitsune in practice rather than theory to guess at.

Dealing with the Nogitsune didn’t count as _practice_ in his opinion.

Especially since one thing Zuri had been pretty damn clear about was that the Nogitsune was as far removed from a “normal” kitsune as it was possible to be, irreparably warped and twisted by the choices it had made and their consequences.

“You are ready.”  Zuri announced after a few weeks of watching the young kit work – patiently – through the various exercises the elder fox set for him.

He would complain and grouse at times, as was expected, but he always followed through.

The young one showed a diligence in wishing to master his powers that was rare in one so young…but understandable nonetheless.

After all, if it weren’t for the kit attempting to master his own mind before his possession, even one as stubborn and strong-minded as this young kit would have found it difficult if not impossible to manage to defeat _any_ Nogitsune let alone one as ancient and powerful as Zuri’s twin.

He continued, hands hidden into the voluminous sleeves of his kaftan.

“I have taught you all you will need to continue to refine your control of your powers.”  Zuri said, studying the pale-skinned creature that was all at once exactly what one expected from a kitsune kit: mischievous, cunning, vibrant; and nothing at all: wary, watchful, incisive, and much more.  “Even those abilities you have yet to master.  All that remains is crafting your tails.”

“Yeah, about that.”  Stiles ran a hand roughly over the back of his head.  “That makes no sense to me.  What would kitsune _intentionally_ give themselves a weakness like that?”

“Balance.”  Came the answer that Stiles had heard too many times before to be _happy_ hearing it now.  “In the physical world all things must come into balance.”  Zuri explained more fully at the deadpan _really?_ Expression on the kit’s face.  “Yin and yang as you – and my twin – are the darkness and shadows to my light.  One of the, not rules more a premise, of existing in the mortal plane is that it _is_ the mortal plane.  True immortals cannot exist here for long without dire consequences.  Kitsune who choose to take on a physical form and exist in the mortal plane instead of our realm are no exception.”

“So…”  Stiles thought his way through that explanation and matched it up against his own – and his claimed – knowledge and experiences.  “By making the tails we give ourselves a vulnerability that makes us _theoretically_ immortal instead of actually immortal.”

“Exactly, as you have seen for yourself.  My twin spurned this weakness and was cast out into the ether, their power twisting and warping them into the Nogitsune, only able to _take_ a host instead of possessing their own form but they were harder to kill as a result, unlike the celestial kitsune who you faced and defeated by breaking her final tail.  She will now age and die like any other mortal though her powers make the likelihood of dying prematurely unlikely, before returning upon her death to the Kitsune Realm.”

Stiles found himself appropriately terrified at the idea of becoming like the thing he’d defeated.

“Okay, so how does this work?”  He asked frowning as he accessed what the Nogitsune had known regarding the process.  “Since I wasn’t just presented with a bunch of physical manifestations of my tails upon becoming kitsune.”

“Yes, it is a problem which I have been pondering.”  Zuri allowed.  “In the normal course of events as you mastered a power and gained a tail, the process of manifesting the new tail would create a physical embodiment during the process.  This did not occur for you due to the manner in which you became a nine-tails rather than being born tailless and having to grow into your power.”

“And your answer?”

“A trance,” Zuri removed his hands from his sleeves and showed the young kit a glowing purple vial.

Or, rather, a vial containing a glowing purple concoction.

“If you agree, you will enter a trance-state by taking this potion, one never before offered or given to an outsider of Wakanda as your bodily changes are accelerated to bridge the gap between the mortal-spark and the immortal-kitsune.  A ritual will ensure the proper trance-state to form your tails rather than the typical trance a recipient falls into.”

Stiles sent a skeptical _look_ at the vial – seriously, that stuff looked radioactive but was the wrong color – before sighing with a nod.

It wasn’t like he really had much of a choice all things considered.

Better taking a risk on a not-at-all-explained serum than turn into his worst fear.

No matter how much it sucked ass.

“Excellent.  I will make arrangements and you will do the same.”  Zuri ordered.  “To be cautious, you should arrange your absence from your minders for at least a day and a night.”

“Great.”  He groaned, head falling back.  “Because _that’s_ going to be easy to manage.”

“Not my problem, young kit.”

“Somehow it never is.”

…

Arranging to effectively disappear for roughly thirty-six hours was easier said than done as Stiles had pointed out to an unsympathetic Zuri.

Two things ended up working in his advantage however:

He had Steve on his side and entered into his confidence and four days after Zuri made his “little” demand on Stiles’s time outside of their training nights – that were still ongoing until after the ritual Zuri was setting up – both his uncle and Clint got called away for an urgent mission over something his new supernaturally-charged senses overheard called “Project PEGASUS.”

Effectively leaving Steve in Stiles’s care – and vice versa – for several days to a week from the briefing the pair were given by Uncle Phil.

That didn’t mean that Steve was going to automatically agree to cover for Stiles, damn his responsible hide.

No, it took some talking to manage it, especially since Stiles had yet to tell Steve exactly _where_ he was and with who during his little walkabouts for his training.

Not exactly the sort of thing that inspired confidence in the super-soldier regarding the situation.

“But why do you have to do this ritual?”  Steve asked, still more than a little perplexed over the situation for all that over the weeks between Stiles’s initial taking of him into his confidence regarding his _other_ nature he’d been filled in – as much as possible and Steve knew the younger man was still holding some things back – on what Stiles knew regarding the supernatural.  “Can’t you just…”

Steve wasn’t even certain of what he was trying to suggest not having a frame of reference for it outside what Stiles had discussed with him and a few strange encounters during the war.

“Allow my tails to manifest naturally and my body to gradually adapt to its new influx of abilities, instincts, and drives?”  Stiles supplied after swallowing his mouthful of salmon and rice.  His uncle and Clint had been gone a day and time was rapidly vanishing in his window to get Steve’s agreement to cover for him.

Without the other man to act like Stiles had a stomach bug keeping him in bed – and Steve bringing “him” (his empty bedroom) pepto and Gatorade – there would be questions asked about why he didn’t show hide nor hair of himself outside his room while he was in Wakanda.

“Because apparently we don’t have time for that before the lack – despite my being completely empowered – would start, according to my teacher, twisting my powers and turning me dark side.”

Steve nodded slowly, a slight frown on his handsome face.

Though at least he understood the reference since Star Wars had been one of the first pop-culture movies Stiles had shown him outside of Disney when Steve couldn’t take another animated musical without going crazy.

Even if Rapunzel and Lilo & Stitch had been quite charming.

“Are you sure about this, Stiles?”  Steve couldn’t help but worry.  Especially about someone he’d come to care about like a little brother.

A feeling of apprehension not helped in the _least_ by the dark bark of laughter Stiles gave at his question.

“Not in the least.”  Stiles told him, smile bitter.  “But I trust in the culture of honor that most kitsune adhere to in order to keep my teacher from trying to screw me over.  At least until his debt is paid.  After that is when I’ll really start to worry.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.”

“Oh that’s good because it wasn’t.”

“Such sass, Steve.”  Stiles grinned, nudging the other man lightly in one broad, muscled shoulder.  “I like it.”

“You would, troublemaker.”

“Excuse you, I resemble that remark!”

Stiles and Steve were only able to keep stern-faced for a couple of seconds before losing it and cracking up at the bad joke, relieving the tension – if only for a moment – over the real risks Stiles was being forced into taking all because he’d chosen to fight instead of laying down in dainty repose when an evil thing tried to take over his life.

…

Stiles knew his eyes were darting all around the room like a cat chasing a laser pointer’s red dot but he couldn’t help it.

Between the ominously glowing purple vial-of-nope and the collection of random shit Zuri had filled the smooth stone dome-shaped room with he felt a little anxious hyperactivity was in order.

“Oookay, seriously.  What is all,” he flailed.  “ _This_.”

Part of the problem was that the vial-of-nope wasn’t the only shiny in the room.

There was a stack of ore that glowed kinda purplish-silver that was pretty-but-weird.

Another of an ink-black ore that was more ominous than awesome.

Ingots that he thought – and his copied memories confirmed – were steel and bronze and copper.

Pewter – maybe.

Cast iron that he knew without having to search his memory palace for it.

All in all a packrat’s dream if said packrat was a metallurgist.

And that was only the metals since he spied what the thought was a tub of raw ceramic clay as well as stacks of various types of woods, and maybe even a few gemstones and a chunk of volcanic glass.

“Kitsune are warrior spirits.”  Zuri answered.  “And so our tails take the form of weapons as you are already familiar with.”

“Noshiko’s ceramic knives.”  Stiles nodded, taking another look around the room and casting an appraising eye over the materials now that he’d been hit with a clue-by-four.  “Right.  So all this is a bunch of options, basically.”

“My collection.”

And didn’t the look on Zuri’s face say how _thrilled_ he was to share it with his twin’s killer.

Hah.

Not Stiles’s fault he hadn’t thought their deal all the way through to the inevitable conclusion, buddy.

“Some kitsune are drawn to one material or another out of preference, tradition, familiarity, and so on.”  Zuri pursed his lips.  “Others due to affinity with their powers.  However…”

“Yeah, I keep hearing however.”  Stiles scrunched his nose at his Grumpy-Fox-Yoda.  “I’m a freak, I got it.”

“None of my children have ever manifested the power of a kitsune.”  Zuri’s expression was nothing short of _sour_ at that admission.  “The natural confluence of Wakanda interfering in their ability to access the Kitsune Realm.  Thus, all that I have collected for their use in fashioning their tails is now available for your use instead.”

Ouch.  Stiles held in any sign of sympathy, knowing that Zuri would rather do without it.  If anything it would be like grinding salt into an open wound.

“Alright, how are we going to do this?”

“I will mark you with the proper sigils for guidance in this process.”  Zuri explained, motioning for the young kit to remove his upper layers – and almost pausing at the sight of the damage that was revealed, all of which had to have been sustained pre-possession before continuing.  Yes, this was a strong one indeed.  It took a bit of the sting out of what he’d lost in the realization of what his clan had _gained_ in the kit.  With a steady hand Zuri painted the proper sigils and runes on the young one, not allowing his eyes to linger on scars telling of torture no matter how vicious.  “Then you will take the potion and the trance will do the rest.”

“And when I wake up my power will have stabilized and I’ll have nine tails to protect, right?”

“That is correct.”

“Well, here’s hoping my inner-kitsune doesn’t pick anything lame.”

“Indeed, kit.”  Zuri’s _tone_ gave new meaning to the word dry.  “That would be most unfortunate.”

“No do-overs with this I’m guessing?”  Stiles almost squeaked as the cold white clay was pressed over his heart and forehead, unable to resist crossing his eyes to try and focus on Zuri’s callused hand between his eyes.

“No.  Whatever form your tails take under the influence of the trance you’re stuck with.”

“Damn.”

Stiles blew out a breath when Zuri was finished and resolutely _did not_ look at how ridiculous he must appear in the shiny reflections coming off of some of the metals.

Steeling – heh, _steeling_ – his nerves he accepted the vial-of-nope from the older kitsune and lifted it in a mock-toast.

“Bottoms up.”

And then his world caught _fire_ in an eerie – and wholly unpleasant – reenactment of his _becoming_ after defeat of the Nogitsune.

…

Zuri never spoke of it, not even to the kit, but for as long as he lived those long hours of watching over him as his power danced around them and melted and molded and shaped and carved under his utter – if unconscious – control was the closest to being truly _afraid_ of another as he’d ever been in his life.

All throughout the night Stiles knelt there in the center of the room, unmoving and eyes glowing pure white.

Darkness and shadows dripping off of his body and reaching out to the materials around him.

Testing this one here then that one there.

Eventually, it drew two ores to him – more of one than the other – and a stack of wood not native to Wakanda that Zuri had had imported years before.

Rowan.

Mountain ash.

Interesting that the kit could use it when most other supernatural beings could not.

The proof of the kit having his twins memories came in the forms the kit’s powers and magic shaped the ores into – somehow turning raw materials into finished metals and alloys.

Fascinating, yes.

And a terrifying proof of ability that no one but him was witness to.

…

The first thing Stiles felt beyond burning and pain – ow, his knees were bitching at him – was a desperate need to scratch his nose.

The next as he opened his eyes was stunned disbelief that Zuri’s ritual had actually _worked_.

And he knew it did.

Arrayed around him in a half-circle were weapons that dripped with power, even the last and weakest.

First was a katana in an ink-black metal that almost swallowed the light with a – yep that was mountain ash – wooden hilt carved with the motif of a nine-tailed fox surrounded by stylized flames.

The same motif on the wooden hilts of the next two tails: a pair of tanto knives similar to Noshiko’s but in the same endless black metal as the katana.

Last came a half-dozen throwing-type knives in a silver-grey that took on a purple sheen when tilted, the blades engraved with flames and a nine-tailed fox on the metal handles.

“Never let it be said that your instincts were foolish or over-confident.”  The dry tones of Zuri broke in study of his tails.  “Or that your power is weak as a kit able to manipulate _these_ materials,” the older kitsune waved at the completed weapons.  “Is rare even with a power inclined towards metals.”

“What are they made of?”

Stiles shakily accepted the sheaths handed over by Zuri, already knowing that he wouldn’t be _hiding_ what he’d made.

Honestly, he didn’t know how Noshiko could stand being separated from her tails, let alone losing them.

“Adamantium and vibranium.”

At _that_ , Stiles’s head jerked up with a _crack_ , hands clenching automatically around the katana he’d just sheathed.

“Wh-what did you just say?”

And yes, this time it came out as a _definite_ squeak.

Zuri smirked, even as he was shaken to his core over what the kit had done.

Though it reaffirmed that he’d made the right decision to pursue alliance over vendetta.

“The katana and tanto are adamantium encasing a vibranium core in the traditional _makuri_ method of Japanese swordsmithing while the throwing knives are the reverse vibranium over adamantium.”  Zuri couldn’t help but be impressed.  “You managed to take a kitsune’s greatest weakness and make it unbreakable.  Congratulations.  Unless you yourself choose to break your tails and give up your immorality, you have successfully protected your power from being misused or taken from you.”

“Well.”  Stiles cleared his throat as he did a bit of mental math over how much the creation of his tails had cost Zuri in materials if nothing else.  “Given the givens I don’t really blame trance-me from being a bit paranoid and covering what loopholes I could.”

Zuri rolled his eyes, gesturing for the kit to finish collecting his tails.

“It goes without saying that you should protect your tails at all cost regardless their state or make.”  He instructed.  “You might also wish to practice stretching your physical abilities after taking the tonic made from the heart-shaped herb.  I imagine it will be quite _enlightening_.”

“Whatever you say, Yoda.”  Stiles nodded his head – respectfully even – to the other kitsune.  “That’s us done then?”

“Yes, kit.  Our bargain is concluded and my debt is paid.”  Zuri nodded in turn, both kitsune feeling an almost _snapping_ sensation as the carried-over bond between them broke away and dissolved.  “I pray our paths do not have reason to cross again.”

“Yeah.  That makes two of us.”

...

Only, when Stiles stepped out of the shadows and into his room - a room lacking a waiting-Steve plotting to give him a heart attack - with his hands full of weaponry amounting to over twenty million dollars worth of rare, nearly priceless, materials and the sum of his kitsune powers, it was to the sight of a simple box waiting on his bed with a card tucked into the twine wrapped around it.

Opening the card after hiding his new arsenal in his wardrobe, Stiles read the simple message.

_A prototype to prevent unnecessary risks of exposure._

Setting the card aside, he opened the simple hinged box to see a pair of thick bangle-type bracelets in the same shiny-silvery metal that Zuri had told him was vibranium, one engraved with a nine-tailed fox surrounded by the same stylized flames from his new katana and knives, the other done in a motif of a normal fox...if a normal fox was surrounded by lightning.

Given that Cap's shield was painted and not in the unblemished form of his vibranium-coated throwing knives he thought he could be excused for failing to place it at first glance.

Shrugging, since he was pretty sure they were from Grumpy-Fox-Yoda, Stiles slipped the bracelets onto his wrists.

Only to hiss and shove down a surprised shout when the damn things came fucking  _alive_ covering him from head-to-toe in a living material that he thought, and what the fuck was going on with Wakanda anyway third-world country his peachy ass, was nano-technology as he stared at himself in the mirror on the door of his wardrobe in shock.

His head was covered in a cowl ala Steve but with definite homage to Batman with the fox-ears on the top of his head and the pointed snout over his nose while the rest of him was covered in a strange not-leather kind of nanite material...and being that it was from Wakanda and what he'd learned about their mineral deposits Stiles was betting was a type of vibranium...again...because he didn't have enough of it to bankroll a small country already in his possession.

Holy shit.

Stiles could freak out about Grumpy-Fox-Yoda dumping millions of dollars of tech - however experimental the prototype might be - and metals onto his head later.

His current problem was  _what the fuck, he was completely anonymous if not,_ exactly _, low-profile in this thing._

The crack about unnecessary exposure totally made sense now.

Apparently Grumpy-Fox-Yoda was a fan of the vigilante school of superhero antics and was hedging his bets regarding Stiles's ability to  _not_ use everything he'd learned.

Which...fair.

He  _was_ hanging out with Captain America and semi-working for SHIELD.

Speaking of which, he had a super-powered friend who was probably waiting anxiously for Stiles to poke his head out and confirm that his mysterious training hadn't killed him...yet.

Just as soon as he figured out how to get the nanites to let loose of him and go back into hiding in his bracelets.

Baby steps.


End file.
